This Ain’t No CNN.

New York State has a new law going into effective on February 22. This law has to do with young drivers; beginning on that date a “junior license” (for those between the ages of 16-18) will require that only one non-family member under the age of 21 will be allowed to ride in the vehicle with the driver if not accompanied by a parent or guardian. I believe that law also calls for the new driver to have a permit for six months before getting a license. So if you want to take your friends to the movies to celebrate that you got your license that day, you can’t. It will be illegal.

This issue doesn’t affect me in any way. But this new law still makes me angry. I think it’s wasted legislation, which is the result of wasted tax money and time that was used in dreaming up this new law.

Here’s the thing. First of all, I don’t know how any cop is going to be able to determine the age of all passengers, let alone the fact of whether they are related or not, when he or she spots a car passing him at 55 MPH. And how are you going to prove if they are related? There’s halves, steps, adopted and many other ways to be related. Are they going to give a blood test right there on the shoulder of the ride to determine if everyone has matching DNA? What if a young couple is double dating with another and going to the movies on a Saturday afternoon? None of them are related. If this is just a law that is going to be applied as an additional offense to something else, then don’t waste my time and just admit that you don’t give a flip about the safety of the passengers, you just want their money. When do we reach the point that because of the saturation of legislation that the people just say fuck it and no longer care if something is “against the law” or not?

Then we have the “must wait six months before getting a license” aspect of it. This is clearly legislation based on downstate ideals again. There are many young drivers upstate that have a pretty good idea of how to use a motor vehicle and are chomping at the bit to turn age 16 so they can drive legally. I was driving my father’s truck, my mother’s car, a tractor, a forklift and a dump truck (but not all at the same time!) all over family owned property (and other places) starting around age 13. Yes, I waited eight months to get my license at the insistence of my mother who wisely decreed that I would have to drive through the winter on my permit before getting my license. But that was a determination that my parents made, not the law. And that was the right way to approach the subject. My parents did the parenting! Not the State of New York.

Not to sound too overly morbid or insensitive, but all of these laws designed to coddle and control the people are preventing the natural order of thinning of the herd. It’s a fake safety blanket to make people feel better and of course it also generates voter support and revenue.

Don’t waste my time, don’t waste my money and sure as shit don’t try to control me.

Everyone is going on and on and on about health care in the U.S. these days and this guest column in the local newspaper caught my eye this morning.

Here is the link.¹

There is a LOT of misinformation out there about how the Canadian health care system works. This guest commentary explains it well based on the experience of the writer. I know my sister and I talked briefly about her experiences with the Canadian health care system when I visited her last week and she mentioned a 2 1/2 hour wait at a clinic. I didn’t mention it then, but I got to thinking about it and that’s not really any different than Earl sitting in an emergency room for three hours waiting for his opportunity to see a doctor.

Personally I think many in the U.S. have lost their minds since President Obama took office and much of the controversy has revolved around health care. I believe there is a lot of misinformation out there that is being perpetuated by those opposed to any change suggested for the U.S. health care system. I don’t know if it’s ignorance, a fear of change or just plain ol’ stupidity, but I have found watching or reading the news to be so irritating lately that I have resorted to reading a handful of news outlets (of varying views and locations) to find out what’s going on with this mess.

¹ Even though I find the local newspaper to be uneven at best with it’s journalism skills, I still read it on a daily basis because I believe that we have a responsibility to know what’s going on in our community.

This has been on countless blogs this week but I have to share this. John McCain showed images of Paris Hilton and Britney Spears in a recent political ad, comparing Obama to the two women as “just a celebrity”. Paris Hilton decided to share her own political ad. I have to say I like her a lot more now. Props to Paris.

This is HOT.

I received an e-mail from Earl around 11:20. “We had a fire, everything is o.k., no one was hurt but the heat treater burned to the ground.” Earl’s plant works with cardboard¹ and wood. Fire is obviously not a good thing. As General Manager, he feels responsible for each employee at the plant. Safety is what it’s all about.

Long story short, the heat treater (a separate building from the main plant) caught fire and the fire department had to be called in to get things under control.

It’s a good thing he sent me the e-mail, because I saw this on the local newspaper’s website when I sat down to eat my lunch. I called him, he said they’d be back in business in no time but it might be a long night tonight.

¹ Us folks in the know call the cardboard ‘corrugated’.

As I mentioned last week, there was a major fire at the local brewery Thursday night. I am home for my lunch hour and all I can hear are fire engine sirens. Earl just called me from work and says he sees nothing but smoke in the “general direction of our house”. I assured him that the house was fine and I didn’t see any smoke or smell anything odd but I could hear the sirens.

Looks like I need to do some scouting on the way back to work.

A story on CNN this morning reports that an ATM machine in Louisiana spit out $20s instead of $5s recently and that over $7000 in extra money was handed out to users of the machine over a two day period.

The authorities are thinking of bringing up charges against those that received the extra dough.

I think that’s wrong.

First of all, the article says that they think someone rigged the machine to spit out the wrong denomination bills. My gut tells me that in reality someone put $20 bills in the $5 slot when they were loading the machine but perhaps someone knew some codes and hacked into the ATM which, by the way, was probably made by the same company that those completely unneccessary but lord and savior electronic voting machines that keep messing up our elections.

Secondly, the problem was reported and the truck stop that owned the machine took action by unplugging it. It was subsequently plugged back in, apparently when no one was looking and so more people received extra money. That’s the fault of the folks at the truck stop, not the customers. The authorities have better things to do instead of tracking down folks from god knows where who got a few extra bucks. In a way, it was their lucky day (though in kind of a morally questionnable way), and if companies are going to be housing bank machines in every last remote location throughout the country then its their responsibility to make sure the machine is working correctly.

Remember the ads in the 1980s when people were all happy because the then brand new ATMs spit out too much money? The big voice said “It’s your lucky day!”

I guess that’s a thing of the past in today’s version of the United States.