Politics: Where we struggle to kneel in the muck.

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
Interesting proposal going around in Texas that will never see the light of day:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory...story2/2828417

I think it's an interesting proposal, but privacy concerns are certainly going to have to be taken into consideration. There are some pretty legitimate reasons people wouldn't want the government monitoring their every movement.

A few thoughts. If someone posted image recognition cameras to capture plates on all cars at every entrance and exit of the Dan Ryan and the Eisenhower in Chicago, the stolen car problem would be cut in half in a few days. Specifically, you put in the cameras and run each recognized plate as it enters and exits. I know the software is out there, and I know there is no right to privacy against having your plate imaged and ran, so I just don't know why its not being done. Send out an alert with the plate, the car and the location every time a plate hits in the computer.

As to your topic, there are companies out there that provide all kinds of tracking chips for tracking products. One of the next Big Ideas I've heard discussed is stuff like what IDSY (that's a Nasdaq stock symbol, I forget the company's name) is doing. Basically, put a chip in all the cars and just track when they pass certain points on the highway. That covers highway-trips at least. I'd be veeery interested in doing this to trucks, as loaded trucks should absorb the costs of road-damage on highways at least.

Otherwise, I like the year-end mileage idea with something like an exponential increase in payments by pounds per tire.

I don't think the problem is constitutional here; nor do I think you are suggesting it is. Rather, the issue might be considered political. One, the idea of a tax on something Americans have been trained to love. The second is the privacy concern.

I think the first could be addressed by implementing the tax along with a 1% decrease (or something like that) across the board in income taxes. If somebody just explained that people are being fairly taxed based on how much harm they are causing to the environment and the roads, I suspect 60-75% of Americans would buy-in. And I don't think the privacy issue is all that much a concern, but the G can be held to promises for any tracking system such that the data would not be available for enforcement of traffic or criminal laws.

As for the GPS stuff, the applications have come a long way in just a few years. However, GPS applications require more than just receipt of the synchronized GPS signals by a moving car. They also require something in the car to provide the information to whoever is doing the tracking. In other words (and I'd guess that you and most others here know this), GPS satellites don't track anything. Its the systems that receive the GPS signals that either track, or are used to track, stuff.

Political or Constitutional? I'm guessing no Constitutional concerns, but somebody may have a decent argument here that I haven't heard or considered.

Hello

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Except for the fact that it seems like all y'all Texicans have been shot at on the roads, this is pretty much a perfect description of Chicago. I'd be willing to bet that more than half of the traffic fatalities in Chicago are hit and runs by uninsured drunks/uninsured jagoffs. Not trying to get all racial here, but from my recollection (e.g., of the news reports), it seems like Hispanic children in Hispanic neighborhoods are disproportionately the victims.

The way you guys describe it (and with the Death Penalty issues y'all have... appointed defense lawyers sleeping thru trials) it sounds like Texas is the gun-nut equivalent of the gun-shunning Chicago, with violence running a bit ahead in gun-shunning Chicago. Man, next time I'm thinking of saying criminals are disproportionately Democrats, I'll think of y'all oppressed Texicans and bite my tongue. That is, unless the criminals in Texas are...

For starters - it's not nice to go and quote me when I'm editing. Secondly, what's with the lame drawl? I don't use one and neither should you. The guy that shot at me obviously had mistaken me for someone else, so I don't really count that as a crime, per se. The guy that came after me with a knife for my parking space is another story, but he wasn't driving a car, so I didn't include him in my review of Texan driver politeness. This is Houston - there's going to be crime. It's a big city. A big stinky city, but that's another issue for another day.

We have no guns in the house. We never will. We try to keep out the conservatives too, but they keep slipping through the sensors. Before moving here, Mr. Lex had a gun permit in Chicago. He does not have one here. Go figure.

[sgtclub]

Originally posted by TexLex
Before moving here, Mr. Lex had a gun permit in Chicago. He does not have one here. Go figure.

Is that a nice way of saying he's pussy-whipped?

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by sgtclub
I wasn't living in the city at that time. Did he get the gun lawfully?

Dunno, but I'm missing the relevance of that to the question we're discussing, which was "Man with a gun? Call 911!"

The NRA thanks you for your credulous regurgitation of its talking points, though. You are a very good boy.

[Atticus Grinch]

Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
Y'all just let me know if you have anything you could call insightful to add here. Meantime, about those dead lawyers whose corpses you were humping (as you might put it)?

You, I like. You're like a Club who can play the dozens. You're mirror images --- you're an embattled minority in the City of Broad Shoulders, and Club is an embattled minority in the City of Broad Minds.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Dunno, but I'm missing the relevance of that to the question we're discussing, which was "Man with a gun? Call 911!"

The NRA thanks you for your credulous regurgitation of its talking points, though. You are a very good boy.

I haven't followed closely enough this exchange because I am swamped with, err, whatever it is that us unemployed types do. Are you talking about Dan White murdering George Moscone and Harvey Milk? If so, yes, Dan White was legally in possession of his gun. He was a former police officer and former firefighter.

I don't have time to google it, but I believe that he got an incredibly light sentence, like only 7 years and I think he was out on parole after serving only 5 years. That is a real problem - light sentences handed out by liberal judges.

He commited suicide a year or so after he was paroled if it is any consolation to those of you who hate guns.

If you are talking about something else, well, sorry, I have been busy, err, collecting my unemployment check.

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Club is an embattled minority in the City of Broad Minds.

More like a City of Closed Minds. Either you spew the politically correct Dem party line in SF, or you are silenced. SF is the paradigm of intolerance and suppression of speech.

[Atticus Grinch]

Rumsfeld questions Saddam-Laden link

Next up, Jesus converts to Islam!

[Not Me]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Next up, Jesus converts to Islam!

Naw, Jesus was too busy fucking Mary Magdelene (sp?) to bother to read that pedophile Muhammad's book. Unlike filthy Muhammad, Jesus fucked adult women, not children.

[Hank Chinaski]

You know how we keep getting to see funny things Bush says? Well JFK isn't just going to check with France, he's going to bridge our policy to the future- he'll check with space aliens! Unless he means God.....


http://edition.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLIT...bal/index.html

"But I can do a better job of protecting America's security because the test that I was talking about was a test of legitimacy, not just in the globe, but elsewhere."

If W had said this, we'd be seeing it on TDS. Ty or SAM would be leading with this morning. CNN would have mentioned it, rather than simply quoting without pointing out how dumb a thing it was to say...

[Hank Chinaski]

[Say_hello_for_me]

Originally posted by TexLex
For starters - it's not nice to go and quote me when I'm editing. Secondly, what's with the lame drawl? I don't use one and neither should you. The guy that shot at me obviously had mistaken me for someone else, so I don't really count that as a crime, per se. The guy that came after me with a knife for my parking space is another story, but he wasn't driving a car, so I didn't include him in my review of Texan driver politeness. This is Houston - there's going to be crime. It's a big city. A big stinky city, but that's another issue for another day.

We have no guns in the house. We never will. We try to keep out the conservatives too, but they keep slipping through the sensors. Before moving here, Mr. Lex had a gun permit in Chicago. He does not have one here. Go figure.

In order.
Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt you.
Is the lame drawl at least somewhat distastefule to you and do you have any tips on how I could make it more so?
What's with the big city Crime comment... Boston liberals just priced criminals out of the market.
And I don't have a gun either... and you can't get a gun permit for a handgun anymore in Chicago... and not for at least the last 10 years... not to age Mr. Lex or nuthin.

But hey, I'm just saying. It ain't the legal guns in Houston that give you the highest per-capita homicide rate of any large city in the nation. Because you Texas pretenders don't hold that title, yet. And what position you do hold, you hold thanks to the De(dammit, just bit my tongue).

Hello

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
And they admitted their mistake.

I dunno Slave -- "mistakes" like that two days in a row is enough to make you think that Fox might not be an entirely unbiased news organization.

Put that in the context of the recent survey I read about showing that the Fox news stories on Bush were postive/negative at 3/2 in July and August (?) (i.e. about the same rate as the major "liberal" media outlets) -- while the Fox "news stories" on Kerry were 4/1 negative during that same time period (other major networks at about 50/50 IIRC).

Just drop that "we report, you decide" and "fair and balanced" bullshit.


S_A_M

P.S. While you repeat the matra, didn't CBS and Rather own up to the errors and questionable provenance of the documents?

[Secret_Agent_Man]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
A bunch of crap showing a remarkable ability to spin material proving you wrong as if it proves you right -- must be studying the Administration's work on Iraq.

But we're the ones who are wrong for saying so.

S_A_M

P.S. Sure you're not really PatentGreedy?

[Greedy,Greedy,Greedy]

Originally posted by Atticus Grinch
Rumsfeld questions Saddam-Laden link

Next up, Jesus converts to Islam!

2:1 odds we see Edwards quote Rumsfeld in tonights' debate.

Now, are the R's waiting for it with a good zinger, or did Rummy mis-speak (contradicting the Pres' debate performance in the process)?