Tag: Robert Heinlein

Democratic Folly

The Democratic Party has decided to double down on Superdelegates. In short, that means that the Party will decide who you will vote for without any pesky interference from voters, thank you very much. They do not see how anointing a candidate could possibly have contributed to What Happened. They do not see how tired many people are of holding their nose and voting for The Chosen One because hey, who else are you gonna vote for?

Many years before I was born, a science-fiction author named Robert Heinlein wrote a book called Take Back Your Government. One of the things he advocated was to get involved in your local party politics. And further, he reminded us that if what you thought was “your” party turned out not to be anymore? Join the other one and work for what you believe in there.

I have heard from reliable sources that the local Democratic Party isn’t any more open to opposing viewpoints than the national organization. I mean heck, they turned their back on Nevada’s gubernatorial candidate because… well because “none of the above” actually won the primary (not complaining; Sandoval has been a decent Governor). But they aren’t above supporting people awaiting indictment.

In Closing: net neutrality; it will be interesting to see how the “gun control” argument changes post Vegas; confiscating assets is big money; cannabis and opioids; potentially, the end of an era in Japan.

I think I have a better idea….

So Clark County School District — the 5th largest school district in the nation — has a “successful” pilot of a program to keep track of students on school busses. Parents can theoretically find out whether their kids got on the bus, and where the bus is. Roughly 700 of the 110,000 students who daily ride the bus got special ID cards and were tracked for 4 whole weeks. Clearly something short of a representative sample. However, “because of financial problems, the district has shelved any large-scale program.”

Good for administrators for realizing that there were concerns about losing passes, and concerns about the costs of the system.

However, here’s the thing. There’s already a great technology in the hands of many middle school students and virtually all high school students that parents can use to keep track of their kids. Better yet, there is absolutely zero cost to the school district for this technology; most parents willingly — nay, eagerly — pay for implementation and all necessary equipment. I personally tested it for 4 years within the Clark County School District Transportation Department, and I feel certain that other parents here and elsewhere have similar experiences. In one case, I was even alerted to a wreck involving the school bus. This of course not only delayed pickup, but changed the pickup location. Use of this amazing technology saved the school district the time and expense of individual notifications to parents in most cases.

It’s called a cell phone.

Stop trying to reinvent the wheel, and stop pretending that a child’s RFID tag is necessarily in the same location as the child.

In closing: good call; inconvenient truth for anti-porn crusaders; Heinlein; I guess none of the researchers ever played the “telephone game”, or they could have saved a lot of research; so some busybody docs and pharmacists think they know more about women’s reproductive health than gynecologists; support a political cartoonist; hackers, crackers, and black swans; Expert Ezra; what could possibly go wrong; income inequality; the Buffett Rule; sure, there’s no such thing as inflation; and Cat Heaven Island. Enjoy an early Caturday.

Be Afraid of Everything

Ok, seriously. Our obsession with terrorism has veered off into paranoia.

Two unidentified “U.S. security officials” says we need to be afraid of terrorists with implanted explosives, and the TSA director agrees that this is a possible concern — adding that there’s not a damn thing even the nudie scanners and patdowns that violate some states’ sexual assault laws can do about it.

Never mind the fact that such a bomb is much more likely to shower bystanders with gore than actually kill them. Don’t let reality stand in the way of losing some more civil liberties; after all it’s for our safety!

Right?

In Closing: more than you really wanted to know about the fake budget crisis, the economy, Republicans, and how politicians plan to screw you out of Social Security; Heinlein; stupid products for children; and camels at the oasis.