Category: Politics

DeVos Rolling Back the “Dear Colleague” Letter

September 7, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Reason magazine is reporting on a copy of remarks Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos is going to give about the infamous “Dear Colleague” letter that sent college campuses on rape witch hunts.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/09/07/betsy-devos-rape-ocr-title-ix-campus

Here’s my issue: Why are college administrators conducting trials on rape allegations? There is no jurisdiction in these United States where rape is not a felony. Guess what? We already have a system for investigating and trying felonies. It’s called the criminal judicial system.

Rape is an ugly crime. It’s also a messy one when it’s between friends/acquaintances, not to mention when alcohol is thrown into the mix. The presumption of innocence and the confrontational nature of trials means that real rapists are not brought to justice. That does not mean you hand it over to kangaroo courts with ridiculously low burdens of proof and rules that would bring a raised eyebrow to a dictator.

After All, It’s Not Their Money

September 1, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Across the bay, the city of St. Petersburg wants to force homeowners to add solar panels anytime they put on a new roof.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/31/st-petersburg-wants-to-force-you-to-put

They might make an exception for existing homes, but any new buildings, the city council at wants panels. And the homeowner or building owner gets to foot the bill. For another $10K. That’s about three times what I paid to put a new roof on my house last year. It’s about double what my mom paid for her roof.

All the council wants to focus on is all the energy they think this will generate. They refuse to think about:

  1. Solar isn’t as efficient as they expect.

  2. The cost to upgrade the grid to handle all that new energy generation.

  3. It will slow down development in St. Pete due to rising costs.

  4. People will have to take on more debt to do roof replacements. This will most likely lead to an uptick in foreclosures because some people will be unable to pay.

  5. Those who have to save up the cash will forgo necessary roof replacements, which will lead to even more problems, and more drains on people’s limited resources.

Of course, it’s not their money. So why should they give a damn if their brilliant idea hurts people.

New Report on “Release Time”

August 31, 2017 / / 0 Comments

From Reason comes news of a new report released by the James Madison Institute and Competitive Enterprise Institute on how much taxpayer money is used by government employees to do union work.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/31/report-florida-unions-milk-taxpayers-for

The big news is Miami-Dade spending $9 million in salary for hours its employees were doing union work. Well, maybe. No one knows for sure because Miami-Dade doesn’t ask the union to account for those hours.

Since I live in Tampa, I took a look at this part. Almost $367,000 for FY16. Again, no accountability as to what union members were doing during those “release hours”.

So, my question is why should I be forced to pay through my tax dollars for public employees to work for the union, which definitely doesn’t have my interests as a taxpayer at heart?

Why Am I An Optimist?

August 29, 2017 / / 0 Comments

Because as bad as civil discourse on social media can get, there are people who prove that when the fecal matter impacts the turbine the good get going. Case in point: the Cajun Navy.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/ct-cajun-navy-hurricane-harvey-20170828-story.html

These are folks who dropped everything, hitched up their boats, and drove for hours on the chance that they can rescue people in their darkest hour. Not because someone was paying them or they were forced to at gunpoint, but because of an altruistic desire to save lives. One guy in the article reports rescuing forty people. Forty Frickin’ People.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m generally optimistic when it comes to people.

Giving the Police Military Hardware

August 28, 2017 / / 0 Comments

The Trump administration is reversing an Obama administration decision and opening up the spigot for police agencies to receive surplus military equipment. What could go wrong?

Well, let’s look back at SWAT team histories. Originally they were developed for dealing with very specific, low occurrence, high threat situations. In that context, it makes sense to have a group available. Except the only place where SWAT teams are regularly taking down heavily armed bad guys is on television. Instead, SWAT teams are doing drug raids. And it’s not like they’re hitting the Cocaine Cowboys of 1980’s Miami.

Giving military equipment to police encourages those police to find new and inventive ways of using them. Usually in the highly violent world of SWAT.

Going To Do My Civic Duty

August 27, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I got something that I haven’t gotten for about fifteen years – a jury summons. It’s been even longer than that since I sat at the courthouse waiting to be called. That got me to thinking of what has changed in my thinking since the last time I sat in the pool.

1. I started carrying a gun on a regular basis. That alone has radically shifted my worldview, but then I attended trainings and started learning about the legalities of self defense – and the intricacies of the legal system.

2. I don’t have the automatic deference to police that my younger self had. Because of the powers that a police officer are granted, I’m more likely to hold them to a higher standard.

3. I don’t trust forensics as much as I used to. Some forensic tools, such as DNA testing, were developed through rigorous processes, and are generally reliable. Others, such as handwriting and hair analysis, were developed in crime labs, and are less reliable. Then there’s the small item of the numerous lab scandals.

4. I no longer expect the heroic prosecutors and scumbag defense attorneys. If anything, I don’t trust either side. Probably about as much as I trust MSNBC and Fox to present their cases.

And now I have to go through my EDC and start yanking out stuff that is not allowed at the courthouse. That may take a bit.

Florida Executed A Murderer, And That’s Not A Good Thing

August 24, 2017 / / 0 Comments

One of the many reasons I hate the current state of the judicial system – it has forced me to be against the death penalty.

I don’t think it’s morally wrong to put certain people to death. There are some crimes that are too heinous and some people who are too dangerous that I truly believe the death option needs to be there.

However, with something where someone is paying the one penalty with no reversal, the most rigorous safeguards should be in place to prevent an innocent person being executed. Except, the people charged with ensuring those protections are enforced are instead ignoring them. Particularly, the prosecutors.

Time and again we see prosecutors breaking evidentiary rules to win a conviction. We see people let off of death row because of evidence suppressed by the prosecution.

So thank you to all the scumbag prosecutors. Thank you for making me want to save the life of a murderer.

Story Idea – Narrative Cop

August 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

I’ve been binging the latest season of Hawaii Five-O. I don’t know why I enjoy it.

The show’s tropie, oversimplified, and generally a popcorn action flick every episode.

While watching, an idea came to me. A cop show/novel/story where the protagonist is considered a brilliant detective. Why, because (s)he can identify the narrative and solve the crimes based on how it interacts with the current media narrative.

Uniform Cop: The deceased is a known gang member who was seen making a drug buy two days ago. Probably killed by a rival gang.

Narrative Detective: No, I talked to his relatives outside. He was turning his life around. This was a corporate hit. Probably some nefarious scheme to keep essentials out of the hands of the poor.

Language and Cultural Appropriation

August 23, 2017 / / 0 Comments

One of my weekly podcasts is Econtalk. This week’s was on the changing nature of language. Highly recommend, especially if you constantly feel the need to correct people’s grammar.

As a writer, it’s important to understand how language is used – especially for dialogue. Knowing the “rules” helps to properly convey the movies in my head to the reader’s. Much to the frustration of many an instructor or curmudgeon, language is not static. Especially not the English language. The meaning of words and the usage of words change. Trying to force people to use “proper” English (or whatever language) is in the end, foolish.

And now we get to the second half of today’s title. Culture, like language, is not static. No one practices the same culture as their ancestors did. Cultures change with technology and new ideas. Moreover, cultures share and absorb new things as their practitioners come into contact with others. In short, appropriation is a feature, not a bug.

Time For Unpopular Opinions

August 21, 2017 / / 0 Comments

1. Confederate statues – I think they should be taken down. People shouldn’t be forced to pay for art that is offensive, whether it be a statue of a fighter for slavery or a jar of piss with a cross in it.

That being said, if local groups want to raise funds and move the statues to private property and spend their own money on upkeep, go ahead.

And yes, I’ve seen the George Orwell quote ad nauseam. First, if you want to remember your history, pay for it. Also, there’s how many books, films, and Wikipedia articles of the Civil War?

2. President Trump – Bumbled a golden opportunity to support free speech and decry the violence on both sides. Instead he gave the packs of jackels everything they wanted. Because he’s such a mealy mouthed boor with no articulable values, everyone gets to project their desires onto him and read into his words what they want. And would someone on his team get him off Twitter?

3. The “Alt-Right” coalition – A pathetic bunch of losers following dead religions in hopes of some relevance. Everyone thinks Trump emboldened them (including themselves), but really it was the left’s hatred of Trump and need to link him with scum that shone a big limelight on these pathetic losers. (Tikinacht? Really? Who thought this was a good idea?)

Oh and to the “alt-right,” even though I’ll defend your right to peaceably assemble and spew their brain dead dogma, please don’t confuse that with agreement. Any of you who raise a hand to my friends that you consider “subhuman” will quickly find yourself stopped with all legal and necessary force. And I really don’t give a damn if you survive the experience.

4. The “Ctrl-Left” / Antifa / Counterprotesters – They are not righteous heroes, but rather the flip-side of the alt-right. They have no problem with violence against those who disagree with them and also subscribe to discredited religions.(Seriously, the communist regimes made Hitler look like a piker when it came to state-sponsored mass murder.)

Your temper tantrums do not make you look like valiant, they make you look like thugs. If you want to be taken seriously, stop.

Same warning as above in regards to threats to my friends you don’t like.

5. The Media – Yes, you hate Trump. We get it. We also get that you have the attention span of a cocaine-infused ferret. Your breathless reporting of anything that can be remotely considered bad for the administration is tiring and unhelpful.

Fox, you’re the inverse, except just as tiring and unhelpful.