Thursday, September 18, 2014

Hawaii Leads The Nation With Highest Per Mile Highway Administrative Costs

Be proud, People of Hawai'i, we lead America highway overhead costs.
High administrative costs in some states could be siphoning away money for road repairs. Hawaii spent $90,000 on administrative costs for every mile of state road. Connecticut had the next highest administrative costs at $77,000 per mile. Meanwhile in Texas administration costs were less than $4,000 per mile and Kentucky spent less than $1,000 per mile on office costs, best in the nation.
You can access the whole pathetic thing here. And just to add injury to injury, our roads and highways are among the worst maintained in America as well.

The Democratic Party of Hawaii has controlled state and local government for over half a century, so Democrats own every failing of state and local government. The voters, though, continue to get all starry eyed when they they see a candidate with a "D" after his or her name, and snarl at any fiend with a "R" or "L".

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Catalist: How Democrats Beat Republicans

It's all about better data which allows them to target unmotivated fellow travelers in order to get them to bother voting, while Republicans try to persuade moderates at great expense.

Brilliant, and for Republicans, not easy to mimic successfully.

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Wednesday, September 17, 2014

The Pincushion Man Cartoon

I remember watching this on an old 8mm film down in our basement when I was little.

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The American Police State: Canadians Take Notice

Neil Macdonald of CBC News has the story, which is hardly new. It has been going on for years: Police rob people they find with large amounts of money, charges are never filed against the victims, and the police departments keep the money. Very simple, very effective, and to my thinking utterly criminal. Legal, but criminal.

And that is why we have an American Police State: Criminal behavior by police is utterly legal. More here.

The Washington Post has still more.

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Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Appalling Spending On Weddings In Hawaii

From today's Honolulu Star-Advertiser:
The cost of a wedding in...Honolulu averages $52,190, with couples spending an average of 72.19 percent of their household income on the big event.

That makes Honolulu weddings the most affordable in Hawaii, according to personal finance site NerdWallet.com.
Anyone who thinks getting married is proper justification for for a $52,000 party isn't grown up enough to get married.

$52,000? Seventy-two percent of household income? On average? This is the mark of a culture without functioning adults. If the parents are spending the lion's share it is even worse: they are old enough to know better. Instead they pass on their values of intergenerational irresponsibility, and wonder why they are impoverished when they retire.

Imagine what a gift of $50,000 to the immature couple, invested for 40 years at 4% would be worth at their retirement. OK, don't imagine, because I used an online compound interest calculator. 245,691.32. Looked at from a different perspective, what does a wedding expense of $50,000 at age 45 cost the parents in lost capital at 65? 110,835.76, and that is for one child's wedding, not two or three such examples of foolishness.

No wonder we have among the highest government debt per capita: We embrace a culture of childishness.

BTW: We spent less than $500 on our wedding, and it was lovely. We are also still happily married.

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Monday, September 15, 2014

"HOW NOT TO LOOK LIKE AN IDIOT WHEN WRITING ABOUT FIREARMS"

Ben Langlotz, firearms patent and trademark attorney, and attorney for the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has a short article on terms which are commonly misused by journalists who are writing about guns.

It might be worth reading if you don't know the difference between a cartridge and a bullet.

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Sunday, September 14, 2014

The American Police State: "surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state"

Excuse me?
So far as we can tell from the record, it has become a routine practice for the Navy to conduct surveillance of all the civilian computers in an entire state
By "conduct surveillance" we mean "look into every computer in the state, searching for particular sexual images." More here.

I think "Police State" is the proper term for this behavior. People involved should not merely lose their case, they themselves should be prosecuted and imprisoned, for a long time.

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