On DUIs and Selective Enforcement

Yesterday was Super Bowl Sunday - a time of fun, friends, camaraderie and, if you listen to law enforcement, drunk driving.  Of course, law enforcement’s favorite tool for managing drunk driving during special events like the Super Bowl, Christmas, Labor Day, Independence Day, Boxer Day, Veteran’s Day, Arbor Day, Executive Professionals Day, days that end with the letter ‘y’, and so on is the ubiquitous DUI checkpoint.  The concept is pretty simple and straightfoward - if we pull everybody over and have them breathe into a breathalyzer, we’ll catch drunk drivers before they have a chance to hurt somebody.  Sure, we take a hit to our civil liberties by allowing law enforcement to pull us over without any suspicion, reasonable or otherwise, of possible wrongdoing, but, as the proponents of such measures love to point out, it’s a small price to pay for the sake of safer roadways.  Unfortunately, like many ideas that sound good on paper, there are a couple of drawbacks in the implementation, notably:

1. Efficacy:  How well do DUI checkpoints really work?
2. Location:  It’s ultimately up to local law enforcement to select a “random” location to enact these DUI checkpoints.  Needless to say, they’re rarely carried out at the entrances to well-heeled gated communities.

So, how did last night’s DUI checkpoint in Reno do?  Let’s find out…

1. Efficacy: The police stopped 995 cars.  Of those, fewer than 1 % were charged with driving under the influence.  Fortunately, we proud taxpayers may take solace in the fact that, though the DUI checkpoint inconvenienced nearly a thousand drivers to stop the reckless actions of eight, at least our police correctly cited twenty-two people for using excessive tinting on their windows.  Truly justice was served last night!
2. Location: Since the point of the DUI checkpoints is to help ensure that drunken frivolity and merriment stays in the bars and isn’t extended into the roadways, we can expect that the DUI checkpoints would be near sports bars, where fans of the Super Bowl would presumably be intoxicating themselves before engaging in some alcohol-fueled road-related shenanigans.  With that in mind, we can safely expect a plethora of sports bars to be located near each DUI checkpoint.  Allow me to demonstrate:

   
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   That’s right - the DUI checkpoint was placed about as far away from every sports bar in Washoe County that you could place a DUI checkpoint and still have people drive through it.  That El Rancho just happens to be one of the major thoroughfares to Sun Valley, one of the more economically depressed neighborhoods in our area, is, of course, purely a coincidence.

So, just to make sure I understand what was accomplished last night, let’s recap:

A DUI checkpoint implemented to keep people from killing each other after a night of football-related drunken debauchery was put as far away from the drunken debauchery as humanly possible and violated the civil rights of nearly a thousand drivers, of which less than one percent were engaging in the very act that “necessitated” the DUI checkpoint in the first place.

This is why I prefer a limited government.

Redistributing Wealth

Why raise taxes when you can just take money from the cities and counties and force them to raise taxes instead?  According to the RGJ, that’s the message from Nevada Democrats:

The governor has submitted a $6.2 billion budget for 2009-11 that relies on substantial cuts to the higher education system, reducing salaries for teachers and state workers and room tax increases to address a $2.3 billion shortfall.

Democrats have said the cuts are unacceptable. Instead, they will explore ways to “generate new revenue” by going after tax scofflaws, ending tax abatements and exemptions and looking for ways to redistribute revenue among counties, cities and the state.

Translation: They’re going to find $2.3 billion by taking it from the cities and counties and forcing them to raise taxes.  Brilliant.  Why make tough decisions when you can just convince the people below you to make the decisions for you?

Nevada’s politicians need to realize something, and they need to realize it fast - pulling money out of Nevada’s economy and into Nevada’s government is like getting blood from a turnip and about as useful.  According to Gallup, Nevada’s consumer confidence is the eighth worst in the nation, which, I’m sure, ties directly into us having the fourth worst job market.  In short, Nevada’s citizens don’t have the money they need to balance their pocketbooks and Nevada’s companies don’t have the money they need to keep workers employed while earning a healthy profit.  Is it really surprising that Nevada’s government reflects the state of its citizens?  Of course not.  However, pretending that our government can “generate revenue” without stripping away more money from an already cash-strapped citizenry, business sector, or local municipal tax base is disingenious at best.

We need to be realistic about where Nevada’s economy is presently.  Retail spending is down.  Casino spending is down.  Property values are falling through the floor.  Unemployment is nearly 10%.  The only sector of the economy that’s doing anything in Nevada right now is mining, and, by the looks of things, the federal government will take care of that here pretty soon.  In short, there isn’t a magical source of revenue that government can tax so it can “generate” revenue of its own.  We’re all running out of money - for better or worse, the government will have to match.

BREAKING NEWS: It looks like the state will be getting a little bit of a reprieve, thanks to the federal government doing what it can to nuke our currency or our children from orbit.  According to the Elko Daily Free Press, the state government will get $513 million as part of Nevada’s $1.6 billion share of the “stimulus” bill.  Thank goodness the federal government has figured out that it’s easier to simply take money from future generations by borrowing a boatload of money than it is to enact a bunch of unfunded mandates and force the states to pay for them.  /snark

Post-Meeting Madness

Last night was the last meeting for our local affiliate of the Libertarian Party before our Organizing Convention on January 24th.  It was actually rather productive - we changed our affiliate’s name so it doesn’t tick off half of the state and we pulled together a draft of our soon-to-be-adopted bylaws that we could actually live with.  I certainly have no complaints.  Best of all, we pulled all of this off in about two hours.  Any time you’re able to get some Libertarians together and get them to agree to some sort of governance structure in less time than it takes to watch all of the Lord of the Rings is a pretty serious accomplishment for everyone involved.

With that in mind, if you care at all, here’s what you need to know:

• The Organizing Convention is being held on Saturday, January 24th at the Plaza Hotel & Convention Center in Carson City, Nevada, from 1-3 p.m.  More information can be found the Libertarian Party of Nevada web site.
• Our regional affiliate has been renamed - we’re now the Nevada Capitol Libertarian Party.  We’re still affiliating Washoe and Douglas counties and Carson City into one regional affiliate.

All in all, things are looking up for the ol’ LP in this state.

Correlation vs. Causation

When I first read yesterday’s post at Reno & Its Discontents, I had two immediate thoughts:

1. The correlation between Nevada’s taxes and the results we’re getting from our tax programs sure does line up nicely.
2. How strong is the correlation between tax spending and results?

To help everyone out, here’s the chart that she references, courtesy of the Las Vegas Sun:

You have to admit - it looks pretty damning, doesn’t it?  We spend in the 40s, we get results in the 40s in return.  Looks pretty straightforward.  However, life is rarely that simple; for example, crime rates are going to be higher in Nevada because they’re calculated on a per population basis, even though, at any given moment, the number of people in this state is going to be substantially higher than that, thanks to our burgeoning tourism industry.  Las Vegas alone gets 40 million visitors a year - statistically, it’s a given that at least a few of them are committing violent crimes.  Of course, I’m not the first person in the state to notice this:  The Nevada Taxpayer Guide crunched the numbers and determined that 1 in 5 people in Nevada throughout the year are tourists, which means that our per-capita numbers are going to be about 20% higher than they would be without the tourists.  So, for example, using the same FBI Uniform Crime Reports that the Las Vegas Sun is using, we find that the FBI calculates their crime numbers based on a reported population of 2,565,382.  If we adjust for tourists using the Nevada Taxpayer Guide number of 249.4 million visitor-days per year, however, we find that Nevada has a statistical population of 3,248,669, which places our tourist population-adjusted crime rates at:

• Violent Crime: 592.8 (per 100,000 residents) - Still above the national average, but it brings us up from 48th to 43th.
• Property Crime: 2,983.3 (per 100,000 residents) - Actually below the national average, and brings us up to 22nd.

Now, violent crime is still awfully high, but suddenly our property crime numbers look a little more tolerable.  That said, this isn’t really the angle I want to pursue.  Yes, some of the numbers for Nevada, like any other tourism-heavy state, are going to be a little skewed if calculated from a pure per-capita population basis.  How many of those suicides, for example, are Nevada residents?  The bigger question is this:  How tight is the correlation between tax revenues and program results? To answer this question, we first need to get some tax revenue numbers, which means hitting the same source that the Las Vegas Sun hit - the Tax Foundation.  According to their tax burden worksheet, the top 10 most taxed states are:

1. New Jersey
2. New York
3. Connecticut
4. Maryland
5. Hawaii
6. California
7. Ohio
8. District of Columbia
9. Wisconsin
10. Rhode Island

So, just using the crime statistics mentioned above, how do these 10 fare?

• New Jersey: 23th in violent crime, 6th in property crime
• New York: 28th in violent crime, 5th in property crime
• Connecticut: 11th in violent crime, 11th in property crime
• Maryland: 44th in violent crime, 32nd in property crime
• Hawaii: 13th in violent crime, 49th in property crime
• California: 39th in violent crime, 24th in property crime
• Ohio: 26th in violent crime, 33rd in property crime
• District of Columbia: 52nd(last!) in violent crime (includes DC and Puerto Rico), 52nd in property crime
• Wisconsin: 18th in violent crime, 19th in property crime
• Rhode Island: 7th in violent crime, 17th in property crime

Now, we’re going to have to ignore the District of Columbia - no state is composed entirely of an urban area, so it’s going to be a bit of a statistical anomaly anyways.  Also, since Hawaii has a rather healthy tourism industry, we can probably assume with some measure of certainty that their crime numbers are going to be a little high.  Even with those data points out of the mix, however, we can still see that, if there’s a correlation between crime and tax load, it’s pretty weak, especially with regards to violent crime.  To help illustrate this, let’s go the other way (ignoring Puerto Rico):

• Maine: 1st in violent crime, 15th highest tax load
• Vermont: 2nd in violent crime, 8th highest tax load
• New Hampshire: 3rd in violent crime, 46th highest tax load
• North Dakota: 4th in violent crime, 33rd highest tax load
• South Dakota: 5th in violent crime, 45th highest tax load
• Rhode Island: 6th in violent crime, 10th highest tax load
• Utah: 7th in violent crime, 22nd highest tax load
• Wyoming: 8th in violent crime, 48th highest tax load
• Idaho: 9th in violent crime, 13th highest tax load
• Connecticut: 10th in violent crime, 3rd in overall tax load

Three of the states with the lowest violent crime rates in the country are also in the bottom five in overall tax rate, which pretty well sinks any causational link between tax rates and crime.  In fact, a quick look of the list reveals something far more interesting - they’re each in geographical clusters.  You have New England (Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island), the Dakotas, and a chunk of the Rocky Mountains (Utah, Wyoming, Idaho).  This implies that there may be more of a link between violent crime and demographics than there is between violent crime rates and tax load.

All right, you might be thinking, perhaps crime isn’t the most illustrative example of how you get what you pay for.  What about education? Well, let’s use the same statistics the Las Vegas Sun used, which means taking a trip to the National Center for for Education Statistics.  For student/teacher ratio, we find that the top 10 states are:

1. Vermont (10.8), 8th highest tax load
2. Maine (11.5), 15th highest tax load
3. Virginia (11.6), 18th highest tax load
4. North Dakota (12.1), 33rd highest tax load
5. New Jersey (12.4), higest tax load in the country
6. Wyoming (12.6), 48th highest tax load
7. New York (12.8), 2nd highest tax load
8. New Hampshire (13.1), 46th highest tax load
9. Massachusetts (13.2), 23rd highest tax load
10. Alabama (13.2), 38th highest tax load

The relationship between tax load and class size is certainly a little firmer than it was for violent crime, but not by much - it’s clear that, if you throw lots of money at the problem, like New York and New Jersey, you can make some headway, but it’s certainly not necessary, and it may not necessarily help.  California, for example, is third from last with a student/teacher ratio of 20.9, just ahead of Oregon (21.3) and Utah (22.1).

Ah, you’re thinking, what about results?  Who cares about class sizes?  Talk to me about graduation rates! Okay, let’s talk graduation rates.  The top ten lowest dropout rates in 2008 were:

1. Connecticut (1.8%), 3rd highest tax load
2. New Jersey (1.8%), highest tax load in the country
3. North Dakota (2.0%), 33rd highest tax load
4. Iowa (2.1%), 31st highest tax load
5. Kansas (2.2%), 21st highest tax load
6. Indiana (2.5%), 28th highest tax load
7. Maine (2.7%), 15th highest tax load
8. Vermont (2.8%), 8th highest tax load
9. Nebraska (2.8%), 17th highest tax load
10. Virginia (2.8%), 18th highest tax load

Here, again, the correlation is a little stronger, but it’s still not a slam dunk - many of the states are in the middle of the tax pack or, at worst, slightly above it.  Meanwhile, if we take a look at the rest of the top 10 taxed states that aren’t in the list above, we find New York at 42nd with a 5.6% dropout rate (note that, according to these numbers, we’re at 43rd, not the 42nd that the Las Vegas Sun has us at), Maryland at 30th (4.1%), Hawaii at 36th (4.8%), California at 17th (3.3%), Ohio at 19th (3.3%), and Rhode Island at 24th (3.4%).  In short, high taxes does not necessarily lead to lower dropout rates.

With enough time, I’m certain that I could dig through more and more data and find the same thing - if there’s a correlation between tax load and government services provided, it’s not anywhere near as strong as many people would like us to believe.  The reasons are both obvious and multitudinous.  Health and education statistics are more about demographics than monetary outlays - if your citizens are broke (Maryland, with an emphasis on Baltimore), it’s not going to matter how much you bring in to your coffers or how high you tax your citizens, you’re still not coming out ahead.  The more expensive the state is to live in, the higher the tax load will need to be to provide the same level of services as another state - this is why Wyoming and New Hampshire, for example, can have low tax rates yet still receive high marks in program statistics, while New York and California are near the bottom.  Of course, tax rates are a factor in a state’s cost of living - the more you tax, the more people have to make to enjoy the same standard of living as a less taxed individual.  In short, “you get what you pay for” is a simplistic sentiment at best and completely misguided at worst.

To drive the point home…

• Why is our student/teacher ratio so high?  Because people move into this state faster than we can build schools and hire teachers. As long as that’s the case, it’s not going to matter how much money we throw at the problem - we’re still going to have higher than average student/teacher ratios.  The only way around this is if we try to build faster than our growth rate, in which case we may overbuild and find our education dollars going towards maintenance on a bunch of facilities we don’t need instead of actually teaching students.  It’s a balance, and, with the way our state grows, one that’s very hard to get right.
• Why is our high school dropout rate higher than the national average?  Because many of the students that show up in our high schools aren’t from here. It doesn’t matter how much money we throw at this problem - if you’re dealing with a bunch of high school-aged kids that move into a school district and suddenly find themselves “behind” because their school district teaches courses in a different order than ours does, you’re going to lose a few through the cracks.  I saw it happen quite frequently when I was in high school, and, believe me, all the teachers and the counselors in the world would not have helped.
• Why is our post-secondary education rate so abysmal?  This one is easy - because Nevada doesn’t have a lot of jobs that call for a college degree.  College graduates go where the jobs are.  Guess what?  Most of Nevada’s jobs are non-skilled, tourist-oriented, low-paying jobs that most college graduates aren’t going to settle for.  Instead, they’re going to move to states that have jobs for them.  Consequently, those states will have higher post-secondary education rates.  Want to fix this?  Spending more money in the college system might help - what will help more is encouraging high skill jobs to come to Nevada so college graduates will want to stay or move here.
• Why is our suicide rate so high?  We’re a state that receives a bunch of tourists who gamble lots of money.  Some of them don’t fare so well.  Three guesses how that will affect our numbers.  Also, guess how much suicide prevention money will help solve this.  Hint:  The answer is not at all.
• Percentage of uninsured?  This one is also easy - remember what we covered with our college graduates?  Good jobs = good benefits = high post-secondary education rates and lower percentage of uninsured.  Poorly paying jobs = terrible benefits = low post-secondary education rates and a higher percentage of uninsured.  Higher taxes will help with this how?

I think I’ve made my point.

We’re #1!

According to the Reno Gazette-Journal, Washoe County ranks first in the nation in heavy drinking, which, as described by the CDC:

That means, for percentage of population, that more men in the area imbibe more than two alcoholic drinks a day and more women ingest more than one drink per day than in other U.S. metro areas.

Surprisingly, Las Vegas was only in the middle of the pack, sitting behind Austin and and Boulder, among other places.  That said, I do have to kind of agree with this guy:

Bartender Malcolm Franks said the CDC’s definition of heavy drinking — more than two daily drinks for a man and more than one for a woman — doesn’t make sense.
“That’s very low,” he said. “It’s way out of line. Who dreamed up that sorry definition?”

Personally, I don’t drink regularly - I don’t like beer and, though I don’t mind a glass of wine from time to time, I’ve never been the kind of person that could really get behind the whole glass of wine a day with dinner concept.  Even so, that does seem like a fairly conservative definition, especially on the female side.  I’d probably place the line at about three drinks for men and two for women, myself, based on my personal tolerance for alcohol (i.e. the line between “lightly buzzed” and “starting to genuinely feel it”) and the comparative tolerance I’ve seen from most women.  Then again, America’s idea of “heavy drinking” and the rest of the world’s is pretty divergent anyways, a fact that’s easily driven home if you ever watch the BBC version of The Office.

A New Widget

While reading Instapundit today, I learned about the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education’s (FIRE) latest report on campus free speech.  So, how did my alma mater do?  Not well… not well at all.

That’s right - the University of Nevada, Reno received a red light due to, among other things, a rather restrictive sexual harassment policy that makes it possible for one student to charge another for sexual harassment, as well as a surprisingly corporate-looking Computing & Network Use agreement that prohibits viewing “offensive material” in the dorms.  This, of course, leaves me wondering how it was possible for me to view half of the white supremacist material we looked at during my Holocaust & Genocide Studies course there, seeing as the entire point of it was to drive home the reality that there are some rather offensive people out there.

Doing Something About It

I know that I’ve been historically harsh about the Libertarian Party in the past, especially lately.  Their foreign policy is, I still think, a little nuts - if the bullies that beat the crap out of me for no particular reason in school were any indication, leaving everyone else alone will not result in peace or prosperity.  To quote “Team America“, some people are just assholes, and pretending that it’s a virtue to imagine otherwise is dangerous.  There’s also the attitude that I’ve stumbled across when I talk to many “Libertarians”, the complete unwillingness to work with others and compromise, the firm death-grip embrace of the idea that “symbolic” action is the same as real, honest-to-God political action (or at least a solid substitute)… ugh.

That said, the Republicans and Democrats have abandoned me.  Nobody, and I mean nobody, is pushing for fiscal conservativism anymore.  Nobody is pushing for smaller government, either in funding or in roles.  The only question that anybody has any interest in addressing right now is, “Which way shall we grow the government this election cycle,” with the unfortunate side-effect that both sides have decided that it’s far better to cut funding to the other side’s programs to the bone so we have a government that’s 50% schizophrenic and 50% underfunded.  The result is a government that tries to do far too much with far too little, a concept that Nevada is at the forefront of.  In fact, I have a message for Republicans everywhere, especially in this state: 

Smaller government does NOT mean cutting the funding of programs to the point where no government program does what it’s supposed to do anymore.  It means eliminating programs so there’s still money for programs that people actually want.

Coincidentally, yes, I’m sorry to say, most people want some government programs.  Until we come up with better alternatives to them, they’re going to stick around… which, in a roundabout sort of way, brings me to where I’m going with this…

With the help of some Libertarians, I’m helping to create and join the Northern Nevada Libertarian Party, which, at least for now, will serve as a catch-all to organize Libertarians and libertarian-minded individuals throughout the parts of Nevada that aren’t currently organized (i.e. everywhere except Clark County).  Yes, this even means I’ve paid dues to the national LP, which means that, yes, I am officially a Libertarian again… officially.  It’s either that or try and cherry-pick among Republican and Democrat candidates for various offices, which isn’t entirely out of the question, either, but not particularly likely.

So… what’s the point?

If Obama’s victory in the primaries has indicated anything, it’s that the Blue Dog Democrats are relegated into minority status in the Democratic Party and will remain there for at least the next four years.  Meanwhile, the Republican Party is doing a fine job of mimicking Chernobyl while doing its absolute best to pretend that the semi-libertarian wing of its party doesn’t exist.  In short, the United States is starting to veer into single-party territory and the GOP has absolutely no plan or idea what it’s going to do about it.

This, believe it or not, bodes well for the Libertarian Party… if it’s willing to take advantage of the situation.

US politics needs two parties.  It doesn’t matter which two parties it is - it’s a very rare event indeed when the US experiences more than four years of single party dominance.  Consequently, if the GOP continues to circle the drain, the LP has a decent chance of forging a coalition among the fiscally conservative elements of the GOP and the socially liberal budget hawks of the Democratic Party (i.e. the so-called “Blue Dog Democrats”).  It won’t be as ideologically pure as the LP would currently like it to be, and compromises will almost certainly have to be made, but it will be a party that has a far better chance of pushing a freedom-promoting agenda through our political system than anything we’ve seen to date.

My goal is to get started on that at the local level.  In order to accomplish anything, the LP must start locally - it’s the only place it can really afford to do anything, to be honest.  National elections are huge, expensive, exhausting affairs with a very poor return on investment for third parties.  On the other hand, it’s entirely possible for a dedicated locally oriented third party to direct resources at a specific race or two, slowly building support on a district-by-district level, and organically grow into something relevant.  As time passes, each locally oriented branch combines into a relevant state tree, which in turn can branch into other states… well, you get the idea.

The seed has been planted.  I’m grabbing a handle on the plow.  Anybody care to join me?

I’m Back & With A Vengeance

Between moving and work, I haven’t had much time to write anything as of late.  That changes now.

Barack Obama is our new President.  No big surprise there, though, to be fair, I was reasonably impressed with McCain’s performance.  He didn’t run a perfect campaign, of course, but to be able to at least make it competitive during an economic downturn and complete hatred for the incumbent party should be commended.  That said, his election has inspired me to actually get involved in politics again - back in college, I was mildly involved in the College Libertarians and the local Libertarian Pary branch, and I think it’s high time I jumped back in.

This has, sadly, led to a bit of a problem:  How? And, equally importantly, with whom?

The trouble, of course, is that I’m not a Republican - I’m an atheist who believes in a sane drug policy and fiscal conservativism.  Needless to say, the Republican Party ran away from the likes of me the instant they embraced “Compassionate Conservativism”.  Once in a while, they’ll throw the more libertarian-minded people a bone and let Ron Paul get some attention, but therein lies the rub:  I don’t want to be a sideshow.  I’m not a Truther, I don’t believe that if we pack up our military and go home that everyone will just leave us and our friends alone (as if that works in a schoolyard, much less the real world), and I don’t believe that there’s any value whatsoever in exhausting energy on our current government’s variances against the official positions laid forth in the Constitution.  No, we don’t rely on a literal interpretation of the Constitution.  We haven’t since we started having a professional full-time army and never bothered to amend the Constitution to allow that.  Perhaps we should, but we don’t - the sooner we accept reality and find a way to work with it, the better off everyone will be.

So, okay, maybe not the Republicans… perhaps I should sign up for a stint with the old LP?  Sure, their foreign policy is insane, but it’s small enough where my voice would be heard.  Besides, major political parties consist of various disparate coalitions of individuals with entirely different needs and wants - I mean, what does a poor retiree, an environmentalist, and a Hyphenated-American have in common?  Very little, except they all predominately vote Democrat.  Surely that means there’s room in the LP for someone who enjoys fiscal conservativism, social liberalism, and a strong foreign policy.  There’s just one small, tiny problem… what Libertarian Party?

That’s right - the second largest metropolitan area  in the state of Nevada, with over 300,000 residents, does not have an active local branch of the Libertarian Party.  The situation here is so bad that the UNR College Libertarians decided to rename themselves:

I propose we disassociate ourselves with the word: “Libertarian” as I believe that it damages our mission of spreading the word on campus. Not only do our values not fully line with the party; their apathetic, isolationistic, and stubborn attitude is damaging and dangerous towards our cause. The Libertarian Party was an idea that our parent’s generation created, and it has failed. I suggest we find new and more effective ways of transforming our campus, our state, and our nation, and this is why I propose we change our name to that of a national organization we can actually be proud of: Students for Liberty. I suggest we change our club constitution to include our party stance, our goals, and eliminate all ties with that of the Libertarian Party. Through this, under the support of the newly founded Students for Liberty organization, we can effectively become more attractive to like-minded Americans.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Libertarian Party has failed.  Completely, totally, and utterly failed.

Anybody care to speculate on how that happened?

Football and Asshats

College football season is upon us, and Nevada finally - finally - had a decent home opener.  Sure, we had to schedule Grambling State to pull it off, but pull it off we did.  Thankfully, this will help soothe the nearly inevitable sting that will grab us all by the rectal regions when Texas Tech comes to town.  That said, the Red Raiders were apparently rather sloppy against Eastern Washington, committing a school record eighteen penalties to start the season, but, then again, it’s not like we played a perfect first game, either, so I’m not going to hold out much hope.  Still, if this is how they react after a semi-interesting game against an FCS opponent, I really, really hope I get to come back next week and see how they react after a good game against a real(-ish) opponent.

When I go to a Nevada football game, I usually sit in the south end zone - it’s known to be a little rowdier, a little crazier, and a little more spirited than the rest of general admission, which is absolutely perfect for letting off a little steam.  Unfortunately, this street runs both ways, which means that, every once in a while, I’ll end up sitting near some people that collectively don’t share more than two brain cells to rub together for heat.  Last night, I must’ve been going through the “Do Not Enter” lane of that street, because, lo and behold, a small cluster of such asstards decided to take root just behind me.

Ah, but David, what would make such people asstards, you may be asking yourself.  Perhaps you’re being unjust, or at least a little unkind?

No.

1. When attending a football game, do not spend five minutes picking on your friend’s t-shirt because it’s not name brand. For the love of all that is good and holy in these United States, do not do this if you actually possess a pair of testicles. I mean, c’mon - if you’re a guy, should you really be going to a football game to ridicule somebody’s fashion sense?
2. When somebody in front of you decides to actually call you on the insipidity of going to what should effectively count as “Man Church”, only to listen to a bunch of drooling frat boys start ridiculing each other’s fashion sense like a piss-poor imitation of Project Runway, don’t start trying to be “witty” by claiming that the person that’s calling you out wants to suck your genitals, or that they want you to suck their genitals.  That’s only making their point.
3. If, having finally realized the error of your ways, or having had one of the three brain cells in your skull randomly bump one of the other ones, please, please do not sit there comparing every single girl that walks by, claiming that half of them “lost it” and calling them “whores” and “sluts” at the top of your lungs.

On a similar note, ladies, if guys are yelling this at you, do us all a huge favor and stop paying attention to them. Please understand that, by waving back and trying to smile at them, you’re only validating their belief that treating you like complete and utter garbage is the way into your well-trodden crotch tunnel.  Then again, if you really believe that such a guy is worthy of such attention… well, maybe you’re right, in which case, thank you for weeding yourself out of any selection pool I would want any part of.

One final note… if you’re going to a football game, please observe and understand the following basic rules, so that I may reduce my temptation to kick you square in the nuts:

1. We’re all rooting for the same team.  Please do not ridicule your fellow fans, even if you think they dress funny.  Chances are, they’re already well aware they’re dressing funny, and, most likely, that’s probably the point.
2. When one of the most critically acclaimed marching bands in the country comes on to the field, please do not shout, “Play Iron Man!”  First off, Iron Man sucks.  It’s a terrible mind virus that preys upon the weak and devours their souls.  Secondly, they know what they should be playing far better than your drunk, besotted ass does.  That’s why they’re one of the most critically acclaimed marching bands in the country.
3. When your team is ahead by 21-0 at the end of the half, do not ridicule your team for “not blowing out the opponent” or “not being prepared”.  Seriously - you’re winning. Show some class.
4. Do not ask the people around you to buy you a beer, especially if they don’t know you.  First off, beer is expensive.  Secondly, you can only buy one at a time - that’s stadium policy.  If they’re buying you a beer, they won’t be able to buy themselves one.  Finally, if you’re having to have other people buy you a beer, that probably means you’re either not old enough or not rich enough to get drunk - either way, the stadium is not a proper venue to exercise your half-assed theories on collectivist economics.

It feels good to get this off my chest.  It really does.  With that… I am done.

Happy 4th All!

Okay, so it’s actually the 5th, Independence Day was yesterday, and the alien ship has finally been shot down.  Good job, Will Smith!

I kid.

So, what is the 4th of July like in the Colborne household?  It’s funny you should ask - it’s about as exciting as you would expect if you were to allow an extremely pregnant woman and a sysadmin to get together and plan a low-key 4th of July bash.  It involves barbecue, linguica, bockwurst, turkey burgers, and fruit.  I’ll admit, the fruit confused me as much as anyone, but the ESO insisted that there be something relatively protein-free at the festivities for those that, y’know, might want to load up on fructose instead of American Protein.  This sounded like the deranged wailing of a madwoman, myself, but what do I know?  Besides, the strawberries were rather tasty and served as a nice complement to the frankfurter, spicy linguica, and bockwurst I had earlier that day.  In the process, I learned about a new food group - apparently, there is more to food than complex carbohydrates and meat.  Huh!

The ESO’s mother, young teenage sister, and one of my friends arrived for the low-key barbecuing.  After some cooking and essening of the fleische, we then slowly (very slowly) migrated to Helm’s Deep, a.k.a. the Sparks Marina, to partake in further festivities, primarily focused upon observing bats and watching people at the Nugget blow up colorful bits of gunpowder.  This was then followed with a trip home and some well-earned sleep.

Now, I know what you’re thinking - how is it possible to condense the mind-tingling excitement of a low-key Independence Day barbecue into two paragraphs?  It takes effort - and time.  Only through mastery of the English language, such as the mastery you’re witnessing today, can a writer succinctly catalogue and describe the sort of excitement contained in those paragraphs, using brief, pithy prose.  Oh yes.  This is mastery, and I challenge anyone to a duel who suggests otherwise.

In other news, I’ll be announcing my own death by cutlass within the week.  Good times!

Meanwhile, a new favorite web site of mine - Keep Lahontan Brown!  Having spent my Independence Day at one former environmental disaster, the least I could do is glorify the existence of another nearby one.  Who doesn’t need more mercury in their drinking water?

Special Session Is Over

Not that I’ve been keeping particularly close attention to the state budget proceedings or anything, but I think it’s worth noting that the special session for the Nevada budget has ended.  Some of the highlights:

1. The RGJ’s coverage of the Special Session is abhorrent.  I’m not kidding - I’d expect the kind of spotty, poorly written coverage I’m seeing from them from the Sagebrush, not a professional newspaper.  If you want a fighting chance of figuring out what’s going on, the Las Vegas Review-Journal has an ongoing series, and the Nevada Appeal is doing a pretty solid job of covering the proceedings as well.
2. The 4% COLA for state employees has been maintained.  There was almost no political will to do anything about this, which wasn’t particularly surprising.
3. The Nevada State Prison lives on.  This is actually a little surprising, to be honest.  It’s definitely long in the tooth and in a relatively urban area, as compared to the facilities in Ely and Lovelock.  It looks like the Las Vegas representatives were concerned that the state was just going to start holding most of its prisoners in the south.
4. The biggest cut?  Textbooks - an idea generated to prevent cuts in teacher pay.  Clark County loves this idea, coincidentally, which is curious considering they need textbooks more than any other district in the state.
5. The casinos may finally get to avoid taxes on comped meals; the Nevada Senate failed to “clarify” their position on taxation of comped meals, which means this issue will almost certainly go back to the Nevada Supreme Court.  There was some chicanery on both sides of the aisle on this one; Titus’ attempted amendment on a possible gas tax holiday reminded me quite nicely why Gibbons ended up becoming governor.  Interestingly, if the federal government decides to hold a “gas tax holiday”, the state immediately jacks the state gas taxes up to make up the difference; Titus wanted to end that.  Considering the state of our roads at the moment, I’m going to go against her on this one, especially since a federal gas tax holiday would almost certainly mean less federal road funding in the future.
6. To the Review-Journal’s credit, they’re the one paper in the state to actually provide an itemized list of the changes in the state budget this year.  I’m generally not fond of our neighbors to the south, much less their news sources, but it’s either them or crap like this.

Anyways, there it is - the state is losing money and there have been some cuts.  Revenue projections indicate things are only going to get worse, which isn’t particularly surprising seeing as Nevada’s entire tax structure is based on property taxes (going down for obvious reasons) and sales taxes (i.e. tax the tourists - guess what high gas prices does to tourism spending?).  Of course, the lack of a state income tax is one of the big selling points to this place for a lot of people, and raising taxes during a recession is almost always a bad idea, so I’m certainly not going to advocate for that; that said, it may be time to get some of the uncertainty out of the state budget.  The trouble with its current structure is that, when times are good, the budget looks really good; when times are bad, the budget looks really bad.  Since it’s almost impossible to actually expect the legislature or the governor to put enough in the Rainy Day Fund to make up the difference, we may need to come up with other, more even revenue flows for the state so that state funding isn’t all over the map every year.  Doing that without a state income tax would require a bit of effort, to put it gently.

Preserve Your Victory Garden!

You have a Victory Garden.  It’s growing things.  Things you want to keep.  What do you do?  Fresh food has the nasty tendency to spoil, even in our relatively dry, microbe-free desert environment (i.e. if you’re reading this in Reno).

The solution:  Canning!  As always, Cardoza shows us the way.

The highlights:

1. Know how to properly can.  There’s a reason botulism is frequently spread through canned goods.  Don’t let yours fall to the same fate.
2. Heat + salt + vacuum = Will probably work.
3. The USDA gives tips and hints and, to be fair, probably has since the Wilson administration.
4. I’m addicted to italics.  I need help.

You can do this!  Just remember - WWJD?  What Would John Do… look, it’s not my fault his initials are the same as a certain carpenter.  I didn’t name him.  I just hope he doesn’t die for our sins or anything, otherwise I’ll never know how to properly maintain my Victory Garden!

(Teach a man to pick a vegetable and you’ll feed him for a day.  Teach a man to garden and you’ll feed him for a lifetime?)

Victory Gardens?

John Cardoza has a rather interesting idea about how to make it through the period of high gas prices and the impending spike in food prices due to the weather in Iowa - victory gardens.  He even gets the topic started off with a little World War 2 propaganda, just to spice things up a bit.

This isn’t a particularly new idea, of course.  Slate recently had an author that’s part of the “urban farming movement” that detailed her experiences with raising poultry.  As the article puts it:

There’s been a lot of ink spilled lately (in the New York Times, among other publications) on city chickens and the urban farming movement. Yes, movement. Whether they’re screw-you-ing the chicken or the egg industries (or, of course, both), next-gen farmers seem to have read Michael Pollan very carefully. They are hip, young, smart, liberal-arts-college graduates, green in many senses of the word, wearing stiff new overalls and chewing on only organic, free-range, locally grown straw, racing outside to move their tractors for street-sweeping. They are locavores, homesteaders, part of a revolution. They are saving the environment, making a statement. And if they eat their own, they tend to see the killing as an unpleasant downside—a tradeoff for the clear conscience that comes with cage-free, hormone-free, factory-free gumbo.

If some of this sounds familiar, well, it kind of should…

“One sometimes gets the impression that the mere words ‘Socialism’ and ‘Communism’ draw towards them with magnetic force every fruit-juice drinker, nudist, sandal-wearer, sex-maniac, Quaker, ‘Nature Cure’ quack, pacifist, and feminist in England.”

Or, if you will, precisely the kind of people that have been involved with the “urban farming movement”… until now.  You see, John is not hip.  He’s young (just turned 30), but you wouldn’t know it by looking at him - he has a handlebar mustache, for Christ’ sake.  He is smart, and he does have a Masters in Music Composition, but that’s where the left-leaning wackiness ends.  Past that, it’s nothing but Reagan-praising conservativism, with strong Catholic Republican roots.  Point being, he’s precisely the kind of person that isn’t being described as part of this “revolution”.  He’s not doing this to save the environment - indeed, becoming an urban farmer in a desert city like Reno is probably worse for the local environment than just letting the food get shipped in.  He’s not doing this to grow organic food - in fact, I’m willing to bet he’d spray DDT on his garden in an instant if he could get a hold of it.  I can also guarantee you that killing his own meat would not be considered an unpleasant downside - on the contrary, it would be one of the rewarding parts of the experience of raising his own animals for human consumption.

This is why this man is a visionary.  He is showing us another way - a new philosophical path to embrace the concept of locally grown, or, if you will, revealing a well-worn old path, one with deep ruts from many ages of use, and dark, tall trees, planted eons ago to shade travelers past.  This man isn’t telling you anything you didn’t already know - he’s simply reminding you that which you already know so well.  His first, best destiny is to tell you how to grow green beans.  Anything else is a waste of fertilizer.

(John - good enough plug for you?)

Celebrating Mediocrity

If there’s one thing you can count on from the Elko Daily Free Press, it’s that it’ll point you in the general direction of something really annoying…

RENO (AP) - NAACP and American Civil Liberties Union officials have expressed concern over tougher admission standards at Nevada’s two universities, citing a report that shows they have caused a drop in minority enrollment.

Lucille Adin, president of the Reno-Sparks National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, said a further increase in the minimum grade point average from 2.75 to 3.0 this fall could discourage minority students from getting a higher education.

“We try to get these kids to go to college, and they make it so difficult by raising the grade point average and the tuition,” Adin told the Reno Gazette-Journal.

First off, let me begin by noting that, yes, this is an AP article, and I suppose that, as a blogger, I’m supposed to be boycotting them or something.  That’s nice. Unfortunately, noting this requires me to go on a tangent that I probably should save for another time, but, as the French say, c’est la vie.

I’m not into ideological purity.  I don’t care if it’s free software, Libertarianism, or whatever - I don’t believe that any single ideology can or should define my personal behaviors.  Life is far too complicated to be properly covered by a finite set of rules and regulations.  That’s not to say that a person shouldn’t have a broad, defining philosophy to guide their actions; failing to have one is a good way to drift around aimlessly.  However, attempting to be a “good” insert movement of choice here, whether that’s Christian, Atheist, Muslim, or conservative blogger, is a pointlessly limiting exercise.  In short, don’t add more rules and requirements in your life than you need in order to live your life productively without compromising somebody else’s ability to do the same.  This is why I’m not too concerned about the AP boycott - if they feel like calling me up and saying, “Hey, stop quoting our material,” fine, I’ll honor that.  Until then, I do think it’s unfortunate that the AP is being difficult with certain bloggers, and it’s unfortunate that they’re encouraging Estate 4.1 to use a different media service to meet their editorial needs, but, if that’s the choice they wish to make, well, it’s certainly within their rights to do so.

Back to the article at hand, though…

I can see how increased tuition would be unpleasant for everyone involved.  I was a college student in the University of Nevada system, and, though it was quite affordable (roughly $1800/semester for tuition for 15+ credits each semester I went there, not including books), I can definitely relate with the fact that a minor tuition increase is felt very sensitively against many college students there.  Since it’s a public university system, especially not a particularly well-renown one, many students there are self-supporting; put another way, you’re not seeing a whole lot of students whose parents are footing the bill.  That said, a 3.0 in high school is not too much to ask in order to attend a university.  If you can’t pull off a 3.0 in high school, you probably shouldn’t be going to college. Heck, I had a 3.7 in high school and, without getting into specifics, let’s just say my college GPA was not that high.  There are a lot of distractions once you go to college - nobody’s forcing you to show up to class, you probably have to do something on the side to pay for your existence, there’s minimal parental supervision, and there are a lot more social events.  If you’re doing such a poor job of handling the pressures of high school that you can’t even pull off a 3.0 there, well, how well do you think you’re going to handle college, hmm?

This brings me to Ms. Adin’s statement regarding the effect a higher GPA requirement affects minority enrollment:  Which is better for our minorities - letting them slip into college without sufficient preparation, so they’re up to their noses in student loan debt with nothing to show for it, or telling them that, sorry, they’re not prepared for college yet?  As someone with far more than I should have in student loan debt, I can tell you straight up that encouraging people to amass the kind of debt many poor students would need to accrue to successfully handle the financial pressures of college when they’re nowhere near ready or, at that time, capable of finishing a college education is morally bankrupt.  You’re staring someone in the eyes and saying, “Don’t worry about high school - you’ll be fine in college, regardless of whether your past experience has encouraged you in your abilities to handle further schooling.  It’s not like you’ll be saddled with crippling debt or waste years of your life that would have been better spent in a vocational program or anything.”  In short, if a student, minority or otherwise, can’t handle the educational pressures of high school, why should our publicly funded universities pay for that student’s education, in whole or in part?  It’s not a good investment for the student and it’s not a good investment for the state.

Besides, it’s not like the numbers for minorities are that bad:

The University of Nevada, Reno, reported a 35 percent increase in black students and a 10.6 percent decrease in Hispanic students.

Remember, folks, according to the new math, an increase in the number of a minority group’s enrollment is a sign that their ability to enroll is being threatened.  This, of course, is probably a shining example of the kind of logic one learns when you go to college without proper preparation beforehand.

On an entirely unrelated note, teens driving into a deer is newsworthy.  The more you know…

Well, That Was Easy

Pretend, for a second, that you’re a state agency that wants to shut up a special interest group.  They want you to provide benefits to their domestic partners, even if they’re gay.  How do you do this without, y’know, actually doing this?

CARSON CITY (AP) - A Nevada panel that oversees health insurance benefits for state employees voted Thursday to extend coverage to domestic partners, including those of the same sex, despite budget problems that could make the $2.7 million cost unaffordable.

State Public Employees Benefits Program board members voted 5-3 to move forward despite concerns about the cost voiced by some members.

If funding doesn’t develop during the 2009 legislative session to pay for the expansion of benefits to domestic partners and their children, the regulation won’t take effect.

Candice Nichols, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Center of Southern Nevada, praised the decision, saying it “enables Nevada to recruit the best and brightest employees for the state.”

That’s right - you create a regulation and state that it takes effect so long as it’s paid for, then promptly ignore the fact that it is, in fact, not paid for.  Brilliant!

I wonder how many other “problems” can be solved this way?  Universal health care?  No problem - we’ll provide universal coverage to everyone and everybody so long as it’s paid for.  Universal housing?  No problem - we’ll buy every American a house, provided tax revenues are sufficient.  Heck, we’ll feed everyone, clothe everyone, and wipe everybody’s diapers… at least on paper.

Folks, I am a genius.

If it’s shaped like a gun, you must spoil the fun

Ah, the joys of zero-tolerance in the schools, as illustrated by the latest in the Reno Gazette-Journal:

A third-grader who was shot Thursday with a pellet gun at Grace Warner Elementary School underscores the danger of the nonlethal guns among teens and adolescents, officials said.

Two students were taken into custody after the incident between 8:30 and 9 a.m. before classes at the northwest Reno campus, Washoe County School District spokesman Steve Mulvenon said.

A boy brought the Airsoft pistol to school and he and a female classmate were playing with it on the school grounds, Mulvenon said. The girl accidentally pulled the trigger, and the round pellet struck a third-grader, Mulvenon said.

“Fortunately, she was not injured,” Mulvenon said. “It raised a welt, as those things do.”

The girl’s mother came to school, looked at the injury, decided the girl was fine and the student was returned to the classroom, Mulvenon said.

School police took the two arrested to the Jan Evans Juvenile Justice Center. Mulvenon did not know what charges they might be facing.

That’s right - a child brings a pellet gun, accidentally shoots another child, leaves a welt that doesn’t even concern the parent, and the two children involved get arrested.  Why?  Well, it’s a pellet gun, after all, so it’s vitally important that we suspend all reason and thought, ignore the true severity of the issue, and call the police, who, in turn, shall similarly suspend all reason and thought and lock the children up.  Why?  Oh, that’s easy - two words:

Zero tolerance.

I remember when a “zero tolerance” platform was put into my high school - this was around 1996, I believe, which seems to coincide with when most other school districts jumped on this bandwagon.  The idea, as most everyone is aware by now, was that, since drugs, violence, and weapons were serious problems in some schools, it was vitally important that all schools escalate these issues to law enforcement so that they could be nipped in the bud.  Since the “zero tolerance” policies were written by educators and politicians, two groups that are well-versed in the needs of children in a school environment and how to meet them through legislation, the resulting policies were both fair and flexible, providing school administrators with the support they needed to reclaim their schools.

Who am I kidding?

Like any “zero tolerance” policy in any other school district, the end result was neither fair nor flexible - more than anything, it gave administrators and teachers the legal cover they needed to abdicate all responsibility and thought from their jobs.  Suddenly, instead of taking into account things like context and circumstance, it was far more important to make sure that teenage girls were locked up for bringing ibuprofen to school (it’s a drug!), teenage boys were locked up for getting in fights (violence!), and so on.  Then, someone got the bright idea that these policies should apply across the entire school district - after all, everybody knows that rules designed to scare the living shit out of high school kids are completely and totally appropriate in an elementary school setting.  In short, in the name of security, we’ve effectively banished our children to prison from the ages of 5 to 18… but, at least we’ll feel safe, knowing that, so long as these policies are in place, we’ll never have to worry about pellet guns or OTC painkillers getting near our precious little snowflakes.

Thanks, Senator Reid.

So, Nevada has the Senate Majority Leader in its ranks, who is well known for his proclivity towards earmarks - you’d think we’d be rolling in federal loot, right?

Wrong.

Nevada is dead last in money from federal agencies. Why? Well, there are a few reasons:

The reasons included the state’s tight purse strings and demographics.

It often takes a commitment from the state to give money to get federal money, and Nevada isn’t spending the money, administrators say. With Nevada’s percentage of senior citizens isn’t as high as the rest of the nation, there’s less Social Security and Medicare money flowing to the state.

Also, it turns out the Navy doesn’t spend enough here:

While Nevada lags in spending by the Army and Navy, Air Force spending is higher.

Yeah, I know about Fallon NAS, but still… we’re landlocked, people! We have absolutely zero navigable rivers in this state, unless you count the Lake Mead part of the Colorado River that forms our southern border. Of course Naval spending in this state is weak.

Meanwhile, Medicaid in Nevada just isn’t getting the job done, apparently:

Nevada’s Medicaid program — which provides medical insurance for people who don’t have health insurance — is close to having only the coverage required by federal law, said Charles Duarte, administrator for the Nevada Division of Health Care Financing and Policy.

“The bottom line is that we have a relatively basic program,” Duarte said. “When you look at spending per capita on Medicaid services, we routinely rank near the bottom or at the bottom.”

For instance, 28 other states have the Medically Needy Program for people not eligible for Medicaid to deduct what they spend for medical treatment to qualify for Medicaid. The federal government requires state governments to match Medicaid contributions and Nevada does not have money set aside to do that, Duarte said.

Nevada’s lack of Medicaid programs shows up in higher health insurance premiums, said Dwight Hansen, director of financial services for the Nevada Hospital Association.

When people have no medical insurance, their health worsens and they seek treatment in emergency rooms. That care is more expensive and the uninsured can’t pay, so the hospitals have to look for other places to recover the costs for their more expensive treatment, Hansen said.

“That cost then gets shifted over to the only people the hospital can shift it over to and that’s the insured population,” Hansen said.

And as health insurance costs rise, fewer employers can afford it, leaving a higher percentage of the population without insurance, he said.

“You get into this cost spiral that makes things worse,” Hansen said.

One of these days, I’m going to go off on why it’s absolutely asinine we’re making hospital emergency rooms pay for the uninsured. This is the equivalent of saying, “Okay, we know you can’t afford food, so here’s the deal - if you go to a Red Lobster, you get free food. Otherwise, you’re on your own.” Uh… what?! On what planet does this policy even come close to making sense? Yeah, I get that we’re trying to make sure that everybody has some basic level of care and that people in need aren’t getting thrown out of the hospital, but forcing hospitals to throw the uninsured in the most expensive part of the hospital seems somewhat counterproductive to me. Then again, I’m mildly mystified why hospitals don’t just remodel their ERs and have a little community health center right next to it - whenever someone uninsured comes in with the sniffles, they get taken to the community center where, what the hell, they can get treated for “free”, just like the E.R. It would be cheaper for the hospital, I’m sure. Or, better yet, we could just get over this idea that people should be providing goods or services for “free”. That would be helpful, too.

For frak’s sake…

I’d love to be nice and prolific today, but I’m going to level with everyone - I got almost no sleep last night. I managed to get into bed around 12:30 a.m., which would’ve been bearable if it weren’t for this (Reno Gazette-Journal):

The quake that struck Mogul at 4:33 a.m. has been revised to a magnitude 4.2. It earlier had been listed as a magnitude 4.0.

The location is also listed as between Laurel Ridge Drive and Graysburg Drive just south of the Somersett Country Club.

It’s part of a series of quakes in the Mogul area that began in late February. The strongest has been a 4.7 late Friday.

There have been 21 small earthquakes today ranging from 0.7 to 4.2, all centered in the Verdi-Mogul area.

As some of you may be aware, Reno has been steadily rocked for the past three months by little earthquakes. The AP touched on it a little today, and, indeed, I’ve touched on it a little myself. They’re starting to get more powerful - we’re getting periodic 4’s now, which is getting disconcerting, to put it gently, especially since it means I’m starting to feel them at my apartment on a more regular basis. It’s also completely jacked my sleep schedule - if there’s anything worse than waking up in the middle of the night and having to decide if this one is actually going to be strong enough to jump into the doorway for, well, I can’t think of it.

Some random thoughts in the meantime…

1. Yes, I know about Wright opening his big, fat mouth. I also don’t care. I wasn’t voting for Obama before he opened his mouth, and I’m certainly not going to now. I have issues with Obama’s policies that, for me, are way more important than he chooses to spend his Sundays with. However, if you do care, Rachel touched on it, and Instapundit is doing an excellent job as always.

2. Conspiracy theorists crack me up. I mean, many of them are the same people that would never think for a second that the government would be competent enough to bake a loaf of bread but simultaneously believe it’s completely possible that the government is competent enough to stage 9/11, among other things. You can’t have it both ways. If the government is really that competent, we wouldn’t care about it fooling us with terrorism because none of us would have to work for a living anymore.

3. I’m going to Interop on Wednesday, which means that posting might be a little sporadic then. I am hoping to get some pictures and do a post on it.

4. Remember, I’m switching to the new system on Thursday. If you’re using the Blogspot address, update it schnell! As future Vice President of Porke Affaires, I command it!

Earthquakes

My coworkers and I just experienced an earthquake today. Lately, Reno’s been getting a lot of them - think over 60 in less than a week. Granted, Reno’s in a fairly active area, but this is getting a little absurd. They have all been really small (most under 3.0, with the occasional 3.0-4.0 thrown in for good measure), but, especially with what happened in Wells about a month or so ago, some people are feeling a little more paranoid than usual. What’s particularly disturbing is that they all seem to be in roughly the same area. Thankfully, I don’t live on that side of town, but I have a friend or two that does, so this could get a little too interesting in short order.

It’s all about the contrast

As Rachel pointed out today, the Internet is proving to be incredibly boring today. Fortunately, I’m willing to go that extra mile for my dear readers, scouring the lesser-known news sources, turning that extra rock that others might miss… which is how I found this (PV Times):

Winery bottles Nevada’s first estate wine

The vineyards at Pahrump Valley Winery are no longer just for show.

Bill and Gretchen Loken, owners of Nevada’s oldest and largest winery, bottled the first crush 2005 Zinfandel called “Nevada Ridge” Wednesday, from grapes grown completely on Pahrump soil.

Besides being an exciting time for the Lokens, it marks a possible turning point for the fledgling grape-growing industry in Nevada, Bill Loken said.

“There’s never been a bottle of wine ever made at the Pahrump Valley Winery from grapes that were grown here — ever,” Loken said.

Loken qualified his remarks, adding it’s “believed to be” the first red estate wine ever grown in Nevada, since Frank “Pop” Buol grew grapes in Pahrump in the 1930s. But little is known about Chateau Buol other than it was bonded by the federal government, he said.

The first crush will produce about 100 cases, or about 1,100 bottles, Loken said. A long list of buyers is awaiting a bottle, expected to cost $75.

Pahrump is about 70 miles west of Las Vegas (the one everyone knows about, not the one in New Mexico); the climate is almost identical, give or take a degree or two. The Pahrump Valley Winery has been trying to successfully grow wine grapes in an environment that is extremely dry (less than four inches of precipitation a year), regularly has 105F highs during the summer, and has a relatively harsh winter compared to places like Napa Valley and Paso Robles. In other words, if there was a more challenging area to grow grapes, it would involve somewhere in the Sahara or the bottom of Death Valley. That they finally pulled this off is nothing short of amazing, especially since they’ve been working on this for nearly 15 years.

One line that did crack me up, though, came at the end of the article:

Could wine connoisseurs some day sniff their fine vintages in the glass and when they inquire where it was grown ask: “Napa Valley? Sonoma? Paso Robles? Pahrump?“

I’m trying to visualize a wine tour through Pahrump, and it’s cracking me up to no end. Keep in mind that Pahrump, great town that it is, is basically little more than thousands of mobile homes planted on acre-to-acre and a half lots dotting a dry, dusty desert. There are a couple of smaller casinos, a few stick-built homes here and there (more now than there used to be), and that’s about it. Oh, and there are also some nearby brothels and Art Bell lives there. Sounds like fun, right? Now, imagine a bunch of yuppie wine snobs coming to visit.

Riiiiiiiiiiiight.

Still, though, I’m genuinely impressed with what they’re doing out there. Growing grapes out there for food in that environment would be a challenge. Growing them for wine and actually coming up with something that doesn’t taste like it belongs on a salad is nothing short of miraculous. Here’s hoping we see more of it.

License plates and the lowest uncommon denominator

Once in a while, I come across a story in the local news around here that really makes me wonder… this one did it:

Panel helps to fairly decide which license plates will stay, go

Nevadans love their personalized license plates, but the Department of Motor Vehicles doesn’t approve just any combination of letters and numbers.

Anecdotally, the number of people complaining about such plates has increased since some high-profile challenges to personalized plates in Nevada have been covered in the media, according to the DMV.

Inappropriate plates include those that contain references to drugs, alcohol or gangs, or those that are sexual, vulgar, derogatory, profane or obscene, and other criteria based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender or political affiliation. The DMV also can determine that something outside of these criteria is inappropriate, something T.J. McPherson of Reno found out when he couldn’t renew his “686SMOG” plates.

686-SMOG, coincidentally, is the phone number for the smog hotline, a rather ingenious concept that preys upon people’s desires to tell other people what to do. If you doubt the innate capacity for human beings to decide they know better than everyone else, take a look at the list of personalized plates that received complaints, according to the article:

Recent Complaints Received by the Department of Motor Vehicles

# MEONTOP - Complaint said it referred to a sexual position with the male dominant. The committee felt that was too vague a reference and voted not to recall the plate.
# YRUSTPD - Complaint said the plate read “Why Are You Stupid” (applicant said it read “Why Are You Stopped) and that it was offensive. The committee felt it might be impolite but not offensive and voted not to recall the plate.
# LTN PWR - Complaint said it read “Latin Power” and was offensive. The committee agreed as policy reads the department is prohibited from issuing a plate that “… expresses contempt, ridicule or superiority of race, ethnic heritage … .” The plate is being recalled.
# ENORMS1 - Complaint said it referred to male genitalia. The committee agreed and is recalling the plate based upon policy prohibiting the department from issuing a plate that “is sexual, vulgar, derogatory, profane, or obscene … .” What sunk the motorist was his license plate frame: “Have you ridden an (ENORMS1) lately?”
# DAGORED - Complaint said it slurred people of a national origin, specifically Italians, the committee agreed and recalled the plate.
# SEXRXRR - Complaint said it read “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll.” The committee agreed and recalled it.
# DYPSYET - Complaint said it was a vulgar reference, the committee agreed and recalled it.

That top one absolutely kills me for various reasons, most of them stemming from me being (literally) twice the mass of the ESO and the ensuing discomfort that would result were I, in fact, the one on top. I’m also trying to figure out what the bottom one means… Do You PiSs YET? Do You PeniS YET? Do You Psychically molest ET? Beats the FORNIK8 out of me.

But wait… it gets better! I present to you the inaugural winner of the Local Nerd Who Needs A Haircut Award!

Not everyone in Nevada is enamored with vanity license plates.

Reno software engineer Tony Morelli has such a distaste for them, in fact, that he’s created a Web site called www.stupidplates.com.

“I think for the people who have them, it’s more like an ego trip,” he said. “They drive around like they own the road.”

The exception, he said, are people who have personalized plates for their businesses.

Look, I’m sure he’s being tongue-in-cheek, and, yes, some vanity plates are annoying. He’s also not advocating for the forcible removal of vanity plates by government edict, near as I can tell. But, I have to be honest here… why do people in the computer industry insist in not getting a haircut? C’mon, man! You’re making the rest of us look bad! Also, what kind of a software engineer makes a site that looks that bad? C’mon, man! I can do a better job than that, and I suck with HTML! Heck, my site looks better than that… well, it looks no worse, anyways. Maybe I should e-mail him with a link to the W3Schools site. I’m going to stop now.

(Note that I’d be more than happy to post his picture here, but I’m not sure what RGJ’s policy on “fair use” is, and I’d rather not find out the hard way… so go click the link to the article. It’s linked in the name of the award. Don’t be lazy!)

(Fine - be lazy. Here it is… right here. Slacker.)