Daily Archives: July 26, 2004

Wasting the People’s Resources

This entry was posted in Constitution Domestic Terrorism Drug Laws Economics Law Enforcement Libertarianism on by

This kind of speaks for itself:

The Kentucky crime labs have actually eliminated a backlog of drug cases that have plagued our courts for years.
The six crime labs have handled 16,000 drug cases since January and no cases older than 60 days remain.
….
The six labs in the state have 140 analysts and support staff to handle cases from about 400 law enforcement agencies.
Their caseload nearly doubled from 20,700 in 1989 to 40,000 in 2003.
A lot of these cases also had to be sent to private labs to enable them to catch up.
But just in case it does not, contemplate these same resources being applied to health care or infrastructure projects or tracking down perpetrators who have actual committed a crime against someone else or simply leaving the money in the hands of the taxpayers it was taken from to make a local decision on how the money would be best used.
Via MAP Inc.

To Blog, or Not to Blog

This entry was posted in Blogging on by

Both a long time and a short time blog friend are having some second thoughts about their participation in the great conversation.
Yesterday Rick at Radically Inept opens with:

I think this will be the final post to this blog. As I’ve been blogging the past few months, I’ve come to realize, that by and large, it’s a self reinforcing circle. The people that read blogs, well, it’s largely limited to those that have the education to read, and the where with all to have a computer. It’s really a very small percentage of the population. And people generally only read what they already agree with.
He followed up a bit later with:
The previous post was going to be my last, but I went for a three hour walk, and besides picking up some serious blisters, I found some inspiration.
…
I’m beginning to feel the joy that comes with activism.
Today, Zombyboy at Resurrection Song says:
When I started blogging, it was for a very few reasons:
1. I thought that my opinion was worth sharing and that writing them out in the best manner possible would possibly be interesting for others.
2. I like to have my thoughts challenged by people I respect, and I expected to have lively, intelligent debates with people of a wide range of views. I didn’t blog just to share my thoughts, but to help form my thoughts by forcing me to reconsider many of my stands.
3. I thought it would be fun.
What I saw in the potential of blogs was the possibility of the greatest exchange of knowledge and ideas in the most egalitarian way that the world has ever seen. Maybe, someday, it will get to that point.
…
As I said, I’m not ready to hang it up, but I am ready to re-think the site. I don’t know exactly what that means, but I do know that if I don’t find some personal satisfaction in the thing, I will give it up soon.
Yep, there has to be some fun in any activity that we undertake and there is a lot of work involved in Zombyboy’s first two reasons for starting to blog. Even enjoyable work can be wearing and if accompanied by unthoughtful feedback (read the rest of Zombyboy’s post) hard to continue.
Rick and Zombyboy may be experiencing just a bit of blogger burnout. We have our ups and downs in our various plays all the time and as another blog friend recently said:
You wanna write, you write. You don’t wanna write, you don’t. There are no obligations here, unless you’re one of those rare people who gets paid for expressing their opinion on this here IntarWeb thingumabob.
…
That’s the way it works. Something nudges the noggin and opinions spill out. “Burnout”? Give me a break. You’re just taking this stuff too seriously.
I probably take all this too seriously as well however it will be a lot more fun and interesting if Rick and Zombyboy’s opinions continue to spill out on their blogs.

This Land…

This entry was posted in Election 2004 on by

Well, this JibJab production which was all over the net last week has gone national. Friday night Tucker Carlson ended Unfiltered with a showing and the NYT (Reg) has picked it up.
If you have not seen it yet head over and take a look. It is a laugh riot for anyone even remotely interested in the US Presidential election.