24thState

Town And Country Can Go Kick Rocks

The problem with politicians is they constantly think they need to do something. Case in point, Town and Country, a suburb of St Louis, that is contemplating a new law banning cell phone use while driving.

A proposal to ban cell phone use in Town and Country is expected to be read at the board of alderman’s meeting Monday night.

If it passes in Town and Country, it will be the first city in

Missouri

to outlaw cell phones while driving. Part of the reason for the ordinance here in Town and Country is the recent deadly crash where a tractor trailer smashed into numerous cars.

The theory is that the driver of the rig was talking on a cell phone. Officials have not announced as the cause of the crash but it is spurring local leaders to take a closer look at the issue.

Now, you may think if you don’t live in Town and Country, it won’t affect you. But if you drive Highway 40 or I-270 you pass right through the city and you would have to hang it up.

Two things.  First, cell phone use is a cause of accidents, but it's not as dangerous as eating food, drowsiness, relationship problems,  playing with the radio, or having children in the car.  All are greater distractions to drivers.  So in passing a law to stop cell phone use, Town and Country would be tackling a minor issue at the expense of our freedoms.  Check this graph out from the Highway Research Safety Center.

 

If cell phone use is a danger in accidents, insurance companies can change their rates and at fault policies based on their usage.  This is happening, as police departments now add cell phone use as a factor in accident reports, and studies tracking the effect of cell phone use on driving allows us to make better decisions.  For a city to make such a decision is a mistake, as they don't have justification.

They'd be better off banning multiple occupants in a vehicle, eating and drinking, or fiddling with the radio.  You're stuck listening to Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald as you drive into Town and Country?  Tough Cookies!  You sit there and listen to it, Mister!  And don't sing along, or get emotional over the tragedy, or you could be fined for crying while driving!   

I say this - if Town and Country enacts this law - we all drive around with our cell phones out but not on.  If they want to restrict our freedoms, I'm perfectly willing to waste their time and money trying to prosecute me - cell phone records showing no records of a call should be a fine defense.

News Roundup

Way too much to cover with too little time, but the following thoughts ran across my brain in the last few days.

DNC liars - if you got the Howard Dean e-mail showing video of John McCain saying we should be in Iraq 100 years, congratulations!  You've officially been lied to by the DNC!  Seriously - reading Dean e-mails pleading for money is a laugh a minute.  We expect politicians to lie, but Dean doesn't even pretend to be truthful - and there's the nasty hint of collaboration between the DNC and the presidential campaigns.  It's going to be a lot nastier than 2004.

RNC internet neophytes - the RNC put up YouTube videos in an effort to be viral, and used names like asdf, and jkl;.  yep - those grassroots Republican types name asdf are the RNC's secret new media weapon.

Bob Frank's piece in the Washington Post says housing prices rose because of two income families.  The Volokh conspiracy says that bunk, and points out that the biggest increase on the middle class has been a rising share of the tax burden.  The tax burden of a family in the 2000 rose by over $13,000 over that in teh 1970's, almost double the rise in mortgage, car and health insurance combined.

Think about that for a moment.  The tax burden rose twice as much as car and house payments.  When we talk about the middle class being squeezed, how come the costs imposed by government aren't discussed more often?  Why is it that the government always wants more money, but no one ever talks about what we're getting for what we already pay?

And finally, the Supreme Court upheld Indiana's Voter ID law.  It turns out that asking someone to show a photo ID to vote is not considered voter suppression, which is good news for Blockbuster, who now rents movies to people with driver licenses but not utility bills.

This is big news for Missouri, which according to Nanette Laughrey and Robin Carnahan, has no vote fraud.  While vote fraud still tends to fall into the absentee ballot and campaign worker genre, at least Missouri voters won't have to worry about undocumented non-citizens voting. 

Around The Blogosphere

1)  Mike Huckabee's Secret Weapon (in more detail):  Huckabee's bloggers aren't political - but they're having an impact on his political life.

2)  Nevada Democrats REQUIRE PHOTO ID TO VOTE in Primary.  Once again, we see that Democrats have two sets of rules.  The principled ones they use to browbeat Republicans as racist, and the more honest ones where they recognize that showing a picture ID is a way to stop vote fraud, especially if it will get Hillary Clinton a Nevada primary victory. -from the Las Vegas Review Journal.

3)  Have we done enough for New Orleans?  Katrina was a disaster, but there's the question of how much the government owes to people who built their homes below sea level.  Before you get mad at me, consider these statistics.

The federal government has already given $127 Billion to Louisiana.  It's elected representative want $250 billion, which is almost twice the GDP of Louisiana in 2004 and 2005.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D), is presently asking the Congress for $250 BILLION to rebuild New Orleans. Interesting number. What does it mean?

• If you are one of 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, child), you  each get $516,528.
• If you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.
• If you are a family of four, your family gets $2,066,012.

The current money spent equals $425,000 for every person left in New Orleans.

And over 3 quadrillion - that's, $3,014,170,389,176,410, is sought in lawsuits against the government.  Do you think it's a little out of hand?   That's about 3 times more money than the entire world has made in all of human existence.  Is there somebody, somewhere, who can say enough is enough?

UPDATED:  A commenter, DoctorJ, presumably not the original, suggested I shouldn't fall for internet e-mails, and suggests that Landrieux didn't ask for $250 billion.  Here's a link to an NPR story where Mary Landrieux asks for $250 billion, and then says they want more. And here's the Washington Post story detailing the $250 billion.  Advantage, 24thstate!

4)  And finally, I want to shine a spotlight on Jolie Justus, the freshman state senator (D) who blogs regularly at Freshmeat.  I don't like her politics, or the free ride the press gives her for being a lesbian, but if every politician wrote in a blog the way she does, this would be a better country.  She gets the blog - and I'd be remiss if I didn't congratulate her on serving her constituents, and having the courage to write her experience in her own words.  I wish my state senator (I don't even know who that is) would do it. Maybe if he/she did, I'd know more about them.

American Solutions September 27-29, 2007

You may think that the big news in September is the presidental primaries, but I'd be willing to bet that a substantive, long-term impact on the country is brewing at AmericanSolutions.com.

The site is the brainchild of Newt Gingrich, and it's intended, on the 10th anniversary of the Contract with America, to remind the country that we have it within us to fix the problems that face us.

Newt has been travelling the country talking about the world that works and the one that doesn't.  A system that works - UPS.  One that doesn't - illegal immigration.  His argument is that we don't expect enough out of the government, and then expect it to fail - which it does all the time.

When you look at Katrina, the Minneapolis bridge, our schools, the borders, healthcare, passports and pretty much every other function of the state and federal governments - we find antiquated ideas and technology that are fail us in our time of need.

Pop question:  A nuke goes off in a city in the US.  Will the government efficiently come in and rescue the survivors?  Or how about another hurricane?  Is FEMA fixed?

Of course not, and no election is going to change that.  So Newt proposes American Solutions.  If you are a Missouri elected official, you ought to be involved in this program.  A failing government is no longer acceptable.

The American Solutions blog is here, though its sparse.

Still confused as to what American Solutions is?  Go there and find out.   

Daily Links

Popular Mechanics talks about the economics behind our nation's infrastructure in light of the tragedy in Minnesota.  Politicians, and the public, should look long and hard at the damage of a falling bridge, and invest in the roads, bridges, transportation systems, and electricity grids to give us a world-class country.

There is no excuse for a nation this rich not to create infrastructure, and our failure to invest threatens our ability to compete.

Personally, I'd take bridge repair and electricity grid upgrading over universal healthcare anyday.

Peter Kinder reminds us that tomorrow, Friday, is a Sales Tax Holiday, and he had a part in it.

Show Me Daily comes out and says that suburbs shouldn't build downtowns.  Seeing as my house would benefit greatly from the planned Chesterfield downtown, I'd have to disagree.  And considering the pace of building out here, I'd say that Chesterfield has a better chance at building up a city center than Wildwood did.  Being right off 40 really helps. 

Daily Links

Clever Writers at the PD:
The Post Dispatch writes an editorial that made me laugh, in a good way.  The Arch. No Wonder.

Because of the snub of the Arch, we're going squawk like an Egyptian.

Future Headline: Blunt helps Old Woman Cross Street, Fired Up Complains about elderly favoritism.

FiredUp, on a roll with their Summer of Misinformation, finds a way to complain about government transparency.  Blunt announced the launch of a state database for tracking spending, and Cole (Hauser, maybe?) tries to label the database as tool for lobbyists to measure their worth.

Um - government transparency is a good thing, Cole.  We don't mock it - we congratulate the politicians on their bravery. 

FaceBook Political Strategy

It may be cool to have a MySpace page, but what are the politicians doing to handle the growth of Facebook?   College Kids may have been the original users, and I can see how politicians would not want to spend a lot of time and money courting the youth vote (they don't vote, for one), but the biggest growth in actual numbers in Facebook is the 35+ crowd.

There are 10,412,000 users on Facebook over 35, and the platform is poised for more growth, while the average time spent equals over 3 hours a day.

Control of the House and Senate switched to the Democrats in 2006 over a mere 82,00 votes.  Put in the right places, you would still have a Republican House and Senate.

Maybe it's time Republicans started putting a little time in Facebook, if just to find out what's going on there?

The Techcrunch review of the Comscore numbers.

Daily Links:

D'Ohssouri:  Ron Davis writes on Springfield, MO attempts to win the Simpson Premiere.  Okely, Dokely.

Bizarro World: The Minuteman Project, a group of citizens who wish to seal our borders to illegal immigration is considered a hate group. In the meantime, La Raza, which stands for "the race" and hopes for the annexation (they call it the return)  of Texas, New Mexico, California, Arizona, Nevada, and New Mexico is considered a civil rights association. 

Going to the National Council of La Raza, you get helpful information like, "What To Do If You're Arrested By Immigration."  I notice it's not in Spanish.  I wonder if they can be sued for that.

Say Hello To A Blogger's Little Friend"  The FEC has a map that shows you donor information for the 2008 presidential campaign.  Cool.  It looks like Missouri is Romney country.  And Obama is doubling Hillary

Bull Dog Pundit Analyzes Rudy's Twelve Points:  Giuliani presented a 12 point plan on how he would govern.  It say the right things...  Maybe a Thompson/Giuliani or a Giuliania/Thompson ticket?

Link Post: Republican Presidential Candidates Version

1) Fred Thompson is in, and I couldn't be more pleased.  I'm not completely dissatisfied with the current crop of Republican candidates - Giuliani and Romney don't frighten me (McCain may get a vote, but no support from me), but Fred Thompson inspires me.  I just feel he's the best choice, because he gets it.

My ideal matchup is a Thompson/Giuliani ticket versus a Richardson/Biden or Richardson/Centrist ticket.  I think it would go a long way to healing the country - as how can you dislike those guys?

The case for Fred Thompson from Kung Fu Quip. A powerful read.  (ht: elephantbiz)

2) Giuliani goes on the offense against Hillary:

Hillary's biggest problem is her view of the world.

It's time for a new beginning, for an end to government of the few, by the few and for the few, time to reject the idea of an "on your own" society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a "we're all in it together" society.

It's always bothered me that Hillary seems to think that taking from those who produce is the moral thing to do, when the legacy of she and her husband has always been getting paid handsomely for selling out the government.  If hypocrisy has any power left in the political sphere, she won't be elected.  Better Barack Obama, who at least doesn't have the sordid history of living richly off a collective policy.  Hillary really does deserve the comparisons to the Kremlin.  Every pig equal, but some more equal than others.

3) Even Republicans Like Bill Richardson's Interview Video
Apparently, we really like this Bill Richardson fellow. I think it's because he doesn't scare us, and he's actually qualified for the job.  For me, it was the wandering eyes at the beginning.  Fine acting, it was.

Link Post: Insects, Impeachers and Inquisitions

1) It's been fun to watch the rehabilitation of John Ashcroft by the left side of the blogosphere.  I had no clue he was so popular.  Although, you do have to be careful - the new line is that Bush is to far to the right that Ashcroft didn't think he was reasonable.  Jonah Goldberg:

If in 2002 I had written that by 2007 Democrats would be singing Ashcroft’s praises as a man of integrity and sound temperament, I would have been laughed out of the room.

2) I knew the language of revolution was bloody, but BlueGirl Red State takes it to a whole new level.  I hope she actually sent that letter in to the Congressional offices of Emmanuel Cleaver, but I'd be a little worried if she did - some people would be disturbed by the imagery - and all she is saying is that Democrats should vote like Democrats. I feel her pain.  The day Republicans vote like Republicans, I may faint dead away.

3) Rachel Carson doesn't get an award, and thats okay with me.  Bill Lambrecht laments the blocking of some special plaque or something for the author of Silent Spring.  It's not enough that she had to kill millions of brown people in Africa and Asia, now Bill wants her to get a plaque? 

• Each year 350–500 million cases of malaria occur worldwide, and over one million people die, most of them young children in sub-Saharan Africa.
• In areas           of Africa with high malaria transmission, an estimated 990,000 people            died of malaria in 1995 – over 2700 deaths per day, or 2 deaths            per minute

One of the benefits of being a liberal is not having to deal with consequences. Rachel Carson meant well, and that's all that mattered.  Meanwhile, 1,000,000 people die a year from malaria because Western Countries banned the most effective tool for killing mosquitos.