July, 2010 archive
Venomous Virtuousness: The Weird Fallacy of Withholding One’s Vote 0
Voting is not a right. It is a duty.
Several weeks ago, I was chatting with an acquaintance about politics (imagine! me talking about politics).
He was most distressed with a local Democratic candidate for Congress over the candidate’s votes on several major issues and was planning to express his discontent by not voting in that race in November.
(Frankly, I share his distress. Indeed, I had pointed out to one of the Congressman’s staffers that “. . . not voting for the health care bill because it doesn’t save enough money is like a surgeon’s refusing to operate because he can restore only 70% of a patient’s vision, rather than all of it.” The staffer was not happy.)
As Hamlet points out, there is a rub. We agreed that a victory by the Congressman’s opponent would be far more detrimental to the public good than the Democrat’s continued incumbency. Yet, he was willing to support through inaction the opponent.
It is simply not true that all politicians are alike and that there’s no difference between the parties. Anyone who believes that has slept for the last three decades or looks to avoid responsibility for his or her inaction.
Furthermore, anyone who expects a candidate, even the best candidate, to reflect perfectly his or her own views is living in WackyWorld. (John Cole has an excellent musing on that today.)
I cannot understand how persons can consider withholding a vote from a better candidate to the implicit benefit of a lesser one to possess any legitimacy as a protest. It’s “I’ll shoot the polity in the foot so I can feel virtuous” reasoning.
In the American electoral structure, the election goes to the candidate with the majority (actually, in most jurisdictions, with the plurality) of votes. Sometimes, indeed, the choice is indeed between worse and worst. In that case, worse is still better than worst.
Someone is going to win. Not voting at all because you don’t like one amounts to voting for the other.
The only choice may be to hold your nose and vote for the better of the two, even though, in your eyes, the better may not be good enough.
Worse is still better than worst.
Voting is not a right. It is a duty.
Spill Here, Spill Now, Scuba No 0
Via Article IX, which suggests that “no new drilling” would be a more palatable and accurate term than “moratorium.”
Spill Here, Spill Now, Gastric Distress Dept. 0
From the Philadelphia Inquirer reporting on a gas blowout in the Marcellus shale foundation:
Hanger said that EOG had employed only one mechanism to keep the high-pressure gas well under control and that that measure had failed at the hands of employees who were not certified in well-control techniques.
He also said EOG, which is based in Houston, wasted valuable hours by failing to promptly notify officials about the blowout.
Rather than calling DEP’s 24-hour emergency line, the driller left three phone messages at night with a DEP employee who was on vacation. Then, the Texans twice tried calling the county sheriff, who in Pennsylvania is not responsible for emergency response. Finally, three hours after the blowout, EOG called 911.
Of course, if there were no government regulation, the blowout would never have happened. Read the whole story for other things that would never have happened: spills, blowouts, polluted water, and so on.
Also, pigs, wings.
Reality vs. Republicanism. 0
Good Choice 0
A truth that seems to escape some persons is that private actions do not always benefit the public good.
Covering every available bit of land with housing and shops, while destroying the wildlife and wildlife living space that helps make living in the part of the world enjoyable, does not benefit the public good.
The purchase would guarantee that the last major tract of undeveloped land along the Lynnhaven River, which boasts oyster beds, wetlands and a maritime forest, is preserved. It also means an end to Virginia Beach firm L.M. Sandler & Sons controversial Indigo Dunes project, which called for more than 1,000 homes.
Some things do belong to all of us and should be protected from marketeers. That’s why we have parks, and that’s why this is a good idea, even when times are tight.
Stray Question 0
When merchants reconstitute concentrated fruit juice, must they hold a reconstitutional convention?
Local City Governments Discover iPads 0
They appear to be going right from paper to over-priced Apple products.
Remember, “Apple” and “over-priced” mean the same thing.
Details at Geekazine, because I’m too lazy to write the same post twice.
I Get Mail 0
This one was about how the Regent is all wet. Follow the link for the deluge details:
Governor McDonnell’s move to revive state spending on bottled water comes at the same time that the Governor has introduced state budget proposals that would cut hundreds of millions of dollars in funding for K-12 education, including the elimination of school breakfast programs for low-income children.
Word Play 0
Received via email, origin unknown:
Did you know that the words “race car” spelled backwards still spells “race car”?
That “eat” is the only word that, if you take the 1st letter and move it to the last, spells its past tense, “ate”?
And if you rearrange the letters in “so-called tea party Republicans,” and add just a few more letters, it spells: “Shut up you free-loading, progress-blocking, benefit-grabbing, resource-sucking, violent, hypocritical *******s, and face the fact that you nearly wrecked the country under Bush.”
How weird is that?
Cantor’s Cant, No Duplicity Too Baldfaced Dept. (Updated) 0
Steve Benen on Our Boy Eric’s hopping bandwagons whose funding he opposed:
If Cantor were the only hypocrite in his caucus, the larger phenomenon wouldn’t be nearly as offensive. But at last count, 128 House Republicans — nearly three-quarters of the total — have tried to claim credit for creating jobs through a Recovery Act that they fought to kill, and continue to disparage.
Addendum:
The Richmonder was there.
Going Rogue Elephant 0
Dean Baker in the Guardian. The whole thing is worth the five minutes it takes to read:
Of course this is true, but it is also true that a drunk driver who runs into a school bus did not intend to be involved in a fatal collision. As a society, we have no problem holding the drunk driver responsible for a predictable outcome of their recklessness. Driving while drunk dramatically increases the risk of an accident. This is why it is punished severely. A person who is responsible for a fatal accident while driving drunk can expect to face many years in jail. Even someone who drives drunk without being in an accident often faces jail time because of the risk they imposed on others.
It would be a stretch to refer to Buccaneer Petroleum’s wild well as an “innocent mistake,” given the corners they cut, the chances they took, and the false paperwork they filed.
Also, stuff that can’t be called an accident.
No accountability for the no account.
Up against the Wall Street 0
Shaun Mullen explains.
Do You Have a Story about Golden Retrievers? 3
Share it with Shaun Mullen, who’s researching them.
Please also relay Shaun’s request to your blog, your Facebook page, or your other social media channels.
To that end, we welcome your personal stories about your goldens — or those of family members or friends. Photographs in the form of .jpgs also are most welcome.
Mythbusters 1
Wingnut myth: Charitable giving will pick up the slack.
Real life:
PTSD 0
The local rag today told a powerful story of an Iraq vet whose life fell apart after his return from the war and who received no assistance from his chain of command.
His life fell apart to such an extent that, for a reason even he cannot explain, he attempted armed robbery.
Local rag has hidden the story behind a login wall.
Even though we pay happily for a dead-tree subscription, I refuse to create yet another innertube password. (If you let me read it on paper, you should damned well let me read it in electrons.)
If you want to read the story, here’s the link; you can register for the site.
hamptonroads.com/2010/07/iraq-veteran-posttraumatic-stress-help-never-came
The story relates to this:
Transcript here.
Bad Decisions Erase Good Decisions 0
There is no excuse for choosing bottled water when safe tap water is available. Indeed, much of what is sold as “bottled” water is tap water put into bottles and trucked about the nation, producing air pollution and plastic waste that otherwise would not exist.
This decision is stupid and wasteful.
And not surprising.
The prohibition was one piece of then-Gov. Timothy M. Kaine’s government “greening” plan that didn’t make it through a McDonnell administration rewrite for fear that it could cost Virginia businesses too much green.
I love the rationale.
Some “industries” deserve no protection. This is one of them.
Speaking of LalaLand 0
When I worked at Amtrak, we did not find the idea of the persons inside our trains being subjected to this at all amusing.
Californication 0
And I am certain it’s not just in LalaLand. From the San Jose Mercury-News:
This is the path of the “sponsored bill,” a method of lawmaking little noticed outside California’s capital but long favored on the inside. In many states lobbyists influence legislators; in
California, they have — quite baldly — taken center stage in lawmaking.Although lawmakers in recent years have routinely failed to grapple with health care, the state budget and other matters of public interest, they’ve managed to do the bidding of the private interests who tout sponsored bills at an impressive clip.
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