- You heard about all those people in California who were evacuated because, you know, water was actually going over the spillway of a big dam? And maybe you thought, “Um, but isn’t that what spillways are supposed to do?” Even if it’s the emergency spillway? Well, here are pix of the degree of stupid involved.
- So what happens in the longish run if the Hearing Protection Act passes?
- Just how long can federal agents “detain” you at border checkpoints while demanding that you give them the keys to your smartphone?
- Time has shown that smoking bans are based on terrible science. (Such a shock, eh?)
- Dorothy Day: A saint for difficult people.
- Is it, like, a really good thing — or a really weird thing for a Buddhist monk to get famous on Twitter?
New York State has had smoking bans for many years in restaurants, bars and other establishments. I do find it much more pleasant going out to restaurants and bars that are not filled with cigarette smoke.
Smoke bothers me now, too, but I still miss it — especially on film. There was a certain panache that went with smoking — plus it gave the actors something to do with their hands — as well as helped establish a style. Cigarettes, cigars, and pipes all lent their particular charm to the character the actor was playing.
Besides, I never adhered to the “second-hand smoke” theory, which this article seems to be focusing on. I think it was because it was so vague and unprovable that the anti-smokers shifted off of direct damage and went to second-hand damage. Apparently not enough people were dying fast enough from direct smoke, so they concentrated on indirect smoke — especially damage “to the children” in homes of smokers — which damage was only assumed to be true.
…..
I remember reading about Dorothy Day a long time ago, but only up to a point; I never knew where her story ended.
That ‘spillway’ thing all kind of sounds like it’s run by the same guys who used to make Soviet farm management policy.
It’s going to take a *lot* of duct tape, blue tarps and baling wire to fix that spillway. A monk on Twitter? Well, maybe it’s just a thing..Smoke. I don’t smoke, but it really doesn’t bother me all that much, as long as it’s not really thick. I don’t care much for getting the smell of smoke in my clothes, though. At my last job, the break room was yellowed with years of nicotine, and you couldn’t see across the room at times for the smoke. If I stayed in there any length of time, it would give me a headache that cleared up quickly once I left.
One of my cousins smokes like a Diesel freight train, did so through her pregnancies as well as all the time her children were at home. Not that I think that’s a good idea, but, to my knowledge, they’re healthy..she’s not doing so well, though.
“It’s going to take a *lot* of duct tape, blue tarps and baling wire to fix that spillway.”
“That ‘spillway’ thing all kind of sounds like it’s run by the same guys who used to make Soviet farm management policy.”
We have a tie for the best comment yet on the Oroville Dam mess. 🙂 They probably will use tarps and duct tape after discovering they can’t find an honest concrete contractor willing to work with the California state goverment. And just as in the days of Soviet policy, they’ll be looking for some “wrecker or saboteur” to purge rather than blame the state’s own decades of neglect.
Among other things, Dorothy Day stared down the IRS until the IRS blinked: https://sniggle.net/TPL/index5.php?entry=30Jan12
Short version: the Catholic Worker never filed paperwork to be an officially-recognized charitable group. And they never filed tax returns. So one day the IRS showed up and told them they owed about $300,000 in taxes. They never paid a cent of it, and the IRS got a black-eye from the publicity.
Sorry, air pollution is air pollution and I’m stuck being a smoker if you’re able to smoke where I am. Smoking is associated with so many cancers, like the pancreatic and bladder cancers that killed my dad, that this is a foolish issue for libertarians to waste time on whether the cardiac data is suspect or not. Puh-leez…
And now the anti-smoking “science” is being used to ban vaping, a no-tobacco technology that if substituted for smoking could save lots of lives. People who rant about going into coughing fits if someone lights up on the other end of a football field are claiming that police can’t tell the difference between smoking and vaping.
It’s been the kind of day where I would predict that the hearing protection law will lead to mandatory suppressors and regulations on the decibels a firearm can emit.
The monk reminded me of Jeanine Deckers, the singing nun. Her one hit, Dominique, became immensely popular with high school and college French instructors, just when I was taking the subjects.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EO7cD6qmydo
So that’s what I’ll be humming the rest of the night.
It would be nice if the events at the spillway could become a political symbolic watershed instead of just a physical one.
I always was satisfied with smoking and non-smoking sections of restaurants. It still seems quite fair.
I never knew the origin of the song “Dominique.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominique It didn’t seem to work out very well for the singer, unfortunately.
FWIW, Steve, as smoking has disappeared from mainstream life and culture I’ve joined others in being more and more sensitive to smoke and disliking it when I encounter it. Once, I wouldn’t have given two thoughts about whether someone was a smoker; now I find that merely passing someone on the street who has the scent of tobacco smoke on their clothing is a bit of a jolt and not a pleasant one.
As to whether it’s foolish for libertarians to take up smoking as a freedom issue … I suppose that’s up to the individual libertarians. But pointing out the fact that smoking bans are based on bad science isn’t the same as taking it up as an issue. Facts is facts and public policy based on bad science is a bad trend.
David Gross — I didn’t know that! Good for the Catholic Worker. I’ve never known much about Day. I always just vaguely lumped her with other left-wing activists, albeit a more religious and hands-on one. But now you and that article have got me much more interested. Thanks for the link. I think I’ll also put in a library request for that book.
I have never smoked cigarettes except just enough to know that I never really wanted to smoke cigarettes however that is not to say I have never smoked or don’t.
It seems to me if someone wants to have a business that allows smoking that should be their right and if they do not that should be their right also and if someone doesn’t want to go to either or both of those businesses for whatever reason then that should be their right & choice too.
Isn’t freedom about allowing people to make their own choices (as long as it don’t harm others against their will) and tyranny is about denying choices because tyrants know what is best for the rest.
Now a days given a choice I have this feeling that most businesses would be non smoking no matter what the law mandated.
Well-said, Comrade X. the real issue for libertarians isn’t smoking. It’s property rights.
Probably true, too, that most businesses now would choose non-smoking even if the law didn’t force them to, as with so much other social change.
I’ve never smoked, but my father smoked like a chimney and did so right up until it killed him. I have absolutely no interest in smoking, and wouldn’t patronize a restaurant which permitted it (outside of a clearly separate and well-ventilated smoking area). Nonetheless, I absolutely support a business owner’s right to decide whether he wants to permit it or not. He might prefer to cater to smokers (there might be a real market niche there, especially in this day and age), and that it every bit as much his right as it is mine not to patronize his establishment. This is completely and totally a freedom and property rights issue. StevefromMA is absolutely wrong to say that libertarians shouldn’t focus on this issue. On the contrary, it’s at the core of our philosophy. Just as with free speech, if you don’t support people’s right to say things you disagree with, you don’t support free speech at all. Same with property rights.
As to the spillway, some of the comments below that article are priceless!
I’m following the Hearing Protection Act, not so much because I’d like to own a suppressor without paying extortion to the IRS and enduring 6 months of regulatory hell to get a permit for something which should be my right (both of which are true), but because it’s a leading indicator of congressional support for second amendment rights generally. It’s a useful tool to help us see who really supports those rights and who is merely a pretender (we already know who are the opponents).
A saint for difficult people? So we’re going back to the days of hair shirts and self-flagellation as manifestations of holiness? Sorry, I’m not buying it.
“A saint for difficult people? So we’re going back to the days of hair shirts and self-flagellation as manifestations of holiness? Sorry, I’m not buying it.”
Have you read any of the Catholic Worker quotes from the link David Gross provided? You might think a little more highly of Dorothy Day if you do.
Your property rights end with my nose IMO.
“Facts is facts and public policy based on bad science is a bad trend.” I can’t disagree with that and maybe you think it’s like letting graffiti flourish will encourage worse crimes. Could be. Just saying that if I were going to pick a battle, I’d go big.
Property rights. Hmm. To open up a can of worms that may have been discussed before my time here…so whose property is the fetus…mom’s, dad’s (or same sex partner’s I guess but that is a different moral/legal query maybe). Ron Paul is against abortion, maybe all Libs are, a policy I can’t support. Do I support a guy who wants to end the Fed but says woman are along for the ride and fetuses belong to…themselves?
Way above my pay grade as my military friends used to say.
At least I didn’t mention Hitler😗
“Your property rights end with my nose IMO.”
Which is why the idea is to leave business owners or homeowners alone to set their own smoking or no-smoking policies and to allow customers or guests to choose whether or not to go there. But of course you’re right about picking battles.
Personally, I won’t go into the question of abortion, but I can tell you that last I heard about 70% of libertarians were pro-choice and about 30% pro-life. There are quite good libertarian arguments on both sides. I’ve found that for most of us it’s an agree-to-disagree issue, and that pro-choice libs would usually still support Ron Paul because of so much else he stands for. One of my dearest friends passionately takes the opposite side of the abortion question that I do. But we don’t have to be parted by polarization because we share so many more views in common.
Oh, and thanks for not mentioning Hitler. 🙂
I am on a kind of medical quest away from home and have time so here I am again.
Good thought about the restauranteur deciding about smoking, we can eat where we like and owner can deal with fallout.
From what I’ve read, “gun rights” and “abortion rights” are the two most intractable views held by folks and people have spent months in “dialogue groups” with virtually zero change on either side.
Good luck on your medical quest, Steve. Hope all goes well.
Interesting observation on intractable views. I’d have thought maybe abortion and immigrations would be the two most intractable.
OTOH, I’ve seen anti-gun people change their minds radically and become gun-rights advocates. I don’t believe I’ve ever in my life seen a pro-gun person become an anti-gunner for any reason. (It may happen; I’ve just never see it.) Not, I think, because we pro-gunners are more stubborn, but because our positions fit better with reality while the anti- position is largely built on ignorance, inexperience, and media-enforced lies.
There are quite good libertarian arguments on both sides.
IMHO abortion comes down to one argument:
To those who believe a person becomes a human being at conception, interfering with the pregnancy any time after that is homicide. Therefore the only possible justification is self-defense, if carrying the baby will likely cost the life of the mother.
To those who believe a person doesn’t become a human until some later time, abortion is a medical procedure and can be justified in some wider array of circumstances.
In libertarian circles, if the abortion terminates a person’s life it violates the NAP. If it gets rid of something that is not yet a person, it violates NAP to force the mother to carry it.
Therefore we won’t resolve the issue until everyone believes in the same “moment of humanity” definition. And that comes down to a belief, not something that can be logically proven.
people have spent months in “dialogue groups” with virtually zero change on either side
Mas Ayoob brought up one such gun-control experiment Jan. 4:
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/gun-violence-radical-empathy.html
The problem with many such “dialogue groups,” and the one above is typical, is internal bias. They are predicated on the belief that if gun owners can only be convinced that mass shootings, gun deaths, etc. are horrid things, then they’ll support “common sense” measures to limit the availability of firearms, because gun owners have no alternatives to offer.
Any attempt to refute the gun-control bias with the idea that we already believe mass murders and other violent crimes are indeed horrid; that we oppose universal background checks, assault weapon bans, magazine limits, etc. because we believe they’ve been proven ineffective; and that we do have an alternative solution already implemented by 15,000,000 of us who are licensed to carry and others wo live in states where licenses aren’t required; get labeled “obstructionist.”
I’d have thought maybe abortion and immigrations would be the two most intractable.
There’s a difference between issues where one or both sides avoid addressing their beliefs with reason, and issues where the beliefs themselves are inaccessible to reason. I’d think the two most intractable issues are abortion and religion.
I watched the news about the flooding, interested because in 1969 I had a tour of the whole water project from Oroville to LA. The Aqueduct was still under construction and the Tehachapi pump station was near completion.
I had a phone call last night from a friend who was then living in San Francisco. He reminded me of my negative comments about the design, location and landform of the emergency spillway. No paved apron, too close to the dam and sloped the wrong direction.
Crossed fingers. They still have 40,000 cfs of inflow, with more rain coming in the watershed. No choice but to keep going with the present 100,000 cfs discharge.
While the Delta-Mendota canal supports a lot of irrigation in the Central Valley, the Aqueduct is very important to the agricultural portion of the state’s economy. California is already in deep doo-doo because of the save-the-minnow claque.
“I had a phone call last night from a friend who was then living in San Francisco. He reminded me of my negative comments about the design, location and landform of the emergency spillway. No paved apron, too close to the dam and sloped the wrong direction.”
I’ve been reading a lot about how various people and interest groups warned the state as early as 2005 that the Oroville Dam had problems. But you spotted the problems in 1969? I wonder how many others realized something was wrong, and how their advice came to be ignored during construction.
My engineering background is a mish-mosh. Mechanical, electrical, but primarily civil. Even a bit of early nuke reactors, ala 1962.
Anyhow, when I first saw drawings/photos of the layout of the Fukushima project, I was horrified. Everything that could have been done wrong, was. And so damned obvious!
While the Oroville thing is obvious, I must say that the rest of the project is overwhelmingly impressive. Awesomely well thought out.
My guess on the problem of the main spillway happened somehow in the original construction. Maybe inadequate compaction beneath the paving or maybe a bit shy on the cement in the concrete mix. A “miss” in inspection or in testing samples of the mix during construction.
This makes me think of the New Orleans levees.