Rush Limbaugh said that if the health care reform bill passed, he was going to move to Costa Rica. I, for one, stand ready to contribute to the fund for his one-way airline ticket.
I wonder if he realizes that Costa Rica has nationalized health care?
There have been a number of recent letters in the Oregonian discussing the naming of the decade that just finished. Several have argued that “the aughties” will not actually end until the end of this year. This is just silly. I’ve already had one letter published on this topic, but they edited out one of my better arguments.
The key mistake is in thinking that the meaning of a term like “the aughties” is affected in any way by the numbering of years past. That constraint cannot be justified. Another mistake is insisting that “the aughties” must always refer to a decade. “The aughties” refers to any consecutive set of years where the tens digit is zero. The most recent “aughties” ran from 2000 through 2009. There was another “aughties” about 2000 years ago, but that one only covered nine years — the years 1 through 9. Similar, “the zero hundreds” only contained 99 years (from 1 through 99), and “the nineteen hundreds” contained 100 years, from 1900 through 1999.
I think we can all finally agree that the 20th Century started in 1901 and ended in 2000, and that’s true because the 1st Century started in 1 and ran through 100. The very term “20th Century” has a dependency upon the centuries that preceded it. Indeed, if you want to refer to “the 201st decade A.D.”, then I would agree that it does not end until the end of 2010.
The Third Millennium AD began in 2001, but “the two thousands” began in 2000. There is no reason why the meaning of “the two thousands” has to involve arguments about the absence of a “year 0″. It’s a word problem, not a number problem.
With all of the critically important problems facing the world today, I suppose it’s nice to be able to argue about something as trivial as semantics for a change.
It is my hope that the recent attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to attack an airliner on Christmas Day results in absolutely no changes in procedure at American airports. Amidst all of the posturing and apologies and useless attempts to place blame, we all seem to have lost the notion of “common sense” in our approach to airline security.
Security experts have stated that three changes since 2001 have demonstrably improved air travel security: (1) reinforced cockpit doors, (2) armed air marshalls, and (3) the passenger attitude that “we aren’t going to take it any more.” Everything else is pointless flailing. Indeed, it was exactly this third change that brought down both the “shoe bomber” and Abdulmutallab.
As unpleasant as it is, we must use a kind of morbid calculus to determine the cost/benefit ratio when assessing security procedures. If an aircraft carrying 100 passengers crashes, assuming an average age of about 35, a collective total of about 30 million hours of productive life will have been lost. In comparison, there are (within an order of magnitude) roughly a billion airlines trips every year. Assuming a conservative one hour of inconvenience per passenger, that means the largely symbolic enhancements to passenger screening instituted by the Transportation Safety Administration have cost this country ten billion hours of lost American productivity since 2001.
Let me put that another way. Every two days, airport delays cost this country the equivalent of one human life in lost productivity. Does anyone really believe that additional security is saving one life every two days? If not, then the TSA is not a “net win” for this country.
At some point, enough is enough. What happens if the terrorists figure out how to weave explosives into their clothing? Will the TSA respond by requiring that all passengers fly naked? I wish I were more convinced that could not happen.
For gosh sakes, can we all please stop whining about the snow day? We had one afternoon of unexpected inconvenience, and it seems like half the city wants someone to be fired over it. Everyone talks about the weather, but no one does anything about it.
Sure, the city of Portland could equip itself with a huge fleet of snowplows and sanding trucks, but that would be an egregious waste of taxpayer money. Such a fleet would sit idle, sometimes for years at a time.
We should all be clear about the government’s responsibility here. ODOT is not required to hold you by the hand and guarantee that you get home in the usual time, regardless of weather conditions or driver stupidity. This snow was a surprise event. No one expected it. By the time it became clear that it was more than just a flurry, an ample collection of incompetent and overconfident drivers had already clogged the streets and highways, making any graceful recovery completely impossible.
Nothing should change because of this event. It was one day. Talk about it, laugh about it, buy some chains, and get over it. Sheesh.
I am usually pretty good at deciphering the strange English translations one finds in the instructions supplied with electronics from Asia, but one of the “warnings” included with an alarm clock I just got is still baffling me.
Warning: Where the mains plug is used as the disconnect device, the disconnect device shall remain readily operable.
I’ve read that through 6 or 7 times, and I still have absolutely no clue what they’re trying to warn me about. The clock does have a battery, so the clock will keep running after you unplug it, but is that really something they would warn me about? We even looked at the Spanish version, and it seems to say exactly the same thing:
Advertencia: Cuando se utilice el tomacorríente principal como dispositivo de desconexión, dicho dispositivo debe permanecer completamente disponible.
Congratulations to these folks for stumping me.
One of my partners has a great idea to save this country a lot of money.
The government could set up kiosks in the major metropolitan areas and give away cocaine, heroine, and methamphetamine, for free. In one fell swoop, you would eliminate 95% or more of the property crime in the country, since addicts would no longer have to steal in order to support their habits. You could redirect the resources of the DEA to more useful tasks. The addiction problem would solve itself pretty quickly by attrition, since those who could not stop themselves would leave the gene pool.
In the long run, and probably in the short run as well, this would be one heck of a lot cheaper than the “war on drugs” we’ve been fighting for decades. It’s almost too bad the idea doesn’t stand a chance.
Several recent letter writers have moaned about Oregon’s proposed ban on smoking in private vehicles, decrying it as an infringement on their civil rights. Although the Bush administration did manage to erode many of our civil rights, this case is different.
The fact is that, sooner or later, the sale and possibly even the use of cigarettes will be illegal. This is inevitable. Those who deny it have not been paying attention.
Those who try to draw a parallel between a tobacco ban and the failure of prohibition overlook one very important difference. It is quite possible to enjoy alcohol safely, in moderation, with no danger to yourself or to others. The same cannot be said of tobacco. As the tobacco companies are obligated by law to remind us, “there is no safe cigarette”. Every cigarette you smoke, from your first to your last, is doing damage to your body and the bodies of those around you, with no positive benefits to you or to society.
So far, the limits have been implemented bit by bit, but there WILL be a complete ban sooner or later. Personally, I’m surprised it hasn’t happened already.
I heard a report on the radio this morning suggesting that the drop in purchasing and consumer confidence brought on by fear over the economic crisis might actually be triggering a transition to a “post-consumer age”, in which consumerism ceases to be the single most important function of our society. I find that to be profound.
For at least the last 100 years, greed has been the primary motivating force behind society in America. Calvin Coolidge told us “the business of America is business.” We are told to go to college to increase our earning potential. We are bombarded by advertisements of every kind, to a degree not remotely conceivable a century ago. We are told that deflation, a reduction in prices caused by lack of demand, is fundamentally bad for society. The stock market, a financial establishment essentially indistinguishable from an Atlantic City casino, has become the benchmark for societal health.
What would a “post-consumer age” be like? Would people actually go to college to improve themselves? Would people migrate to volunteerism and public service?
I see that KGW TV has now opened their Studio on the Square, where they are broadcasting their morning news and a couple of other shows from Pioneer Courthouse Square. I’m a little confused by this.
They have made a big PR deal about this, but why should I care from where there programs originate? It’s just a studio. Further, I’m wondering why the city allowed this deal to begin with. Wouldn’t that space have been more productively used for a gift shop, or a visitor’s center?
Maybe I’m just too grumpy.