How “Self-regulation” Works

What evil has he not done!

Call it what it is!

Google is getting sued

I hope I will be able to continue to make posts, but as this is primarily a diversion in my normal life, I can make no guarantees.

Though I may not like them, I have to hope they win this suit. Apparently a woman is suing Google, claiming they are partially responsible for her being hit by a car. No, it was not a Street View car. The woman used Google Maps to plot a walking path on her Blackberry, and it indicated she needed to walk along a highway. This highway has no place to walk though.

Did that stop her from trying to cross the highway? Wouldn’t be much of a law suit if she didn’t. While crossing, she got hit by a car. The driver is also named in the suit, so at least Google won’t be alone at the defendants table.

That’s right, a woman is suing a company for directions, that come with a warning about their accuracy, because she choose to cross a highway, apparently without looking both ways. Isn’t that a crime in it of it self? Crossing a highway not at an indicated spot, with say a light. In fact, because causing a traffic accident would be considered disrupting traffic, that is jaywalking. True, a small offense, but still, if a civil suit is being filled, shouldn’t that criminal suit be considered?

You can read about this suit at several places. Here’s a link to the CNet News article.

Google Maps walking-suit attorney: It was dark

Do you think someone told her to sue?

The Arizona law is more akin to the seat belt laws in many states. If you get pulled over without your seat belt, that’s another ticket. If you get pulled over and are not a citizen, you will be reported to immigration authorities. In both cases the officer must act on the law to give it effect and you already have to be stopped for it to become an issue.

Some say it is a pathway to discrimination. What law is not! There can always be a bad cop that pulls you in for something with some arbitrary reason purely to harass you, that is not new. It is not right, but it is not new.

When you consider that the Federal Government is responsible for dealing with illegal immigration and has not been doing a good job of it is this law really a bad thing? Also, the law has no teeth, as illegal immigrants found are reported to the border patrol, who have been responsible for this thus far, and are not doing the best job.

Again, this is not an immigration law, is no more a doorway to discrimination as any other law, and if anything highlights the Federal Government’s incompetence to such an apparent National Security issue.

Family friend Sally Quinn told CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that Gore winning the popular vote for president but losing the electoral vote (to Bush) may have done the marriage irreparable harm.

"He’s obviously suffered a lot," Quinn said. "He’ll never get over that and neither will she."

CBS News: Al Gore and Wife Tipper to Separate

Seriously? Of all the intricacies of marriage that could lead to the decision of the Gore’s, it’s Bush’s fault?

First off, a separation is a private matter. I know Al is a politician and something of a celebrity so perhaps a privately life is a bit much to ask, but he has not been making headlines for awhile now, has he.

Second, if the marriage of a career politician can be that disturbed, in fact just the psyche of a career politician be that disturbed by a single narrow loss, then how could that marriage have been considered strong?

I mean no disrespect to the Gore’s, and am very sorry for them, any marriage having hard times is a terrible thing, but I strongly doubt the cause was Bush being president (especially after 10 years, and two times Al could have run again).  The issue between them is certainly a private matter. That fact should be respected, and I hope they will be able to resolve it.

Can I just say I love the irony of the government saying that a private company cannot be trusted to self regulate, when the United States government with a debt how high (US Debt Clock.org)?

But, of course, a private company is very different from a government, so we cannot truly compare the two. A company cannot print their own money. The highest politicians in the government of the United States of America are affectively guaranteed jobs for 2, 4, or 6 years, while corporate officers can be fired. Selling your stock in a company has the immediate affect of showing your distrust or dislike of the company, while all you can do is move out of the country to escape it. You can also boycott and protest a company, but violate laws, and you can go to jail. Yeah, completely different. A company can be regulated by the masses everyday, our government, not so much.

Many are calling for more and stricter regulations on BP, claiming the current ones are not cutting it. Of course it is worth pointing out the current ones are not being enforced, but that comment can remain at that. Those same people are saying that the method of so-called “self-regulation,” is not working, as this spill did happen. Let us examine this claim.

When was the last time there was such a major oil spill in the USA?

• The Exxon Valdez oil spill was in late March 1989, twenty one years ago. That was 10 million barrels minimum of oil spilled.
• In 1990 5.1 million spilled near Galveston Texas.
• 1993, three ships collide near Tampa Bay, spilling 336,00 gallons.
• 2004, a storm pushed a ship into a rocky shore and let 337,000 gallons of oil spill.
• 2005, Katrina hit the Gulf of Mexico and caused some 7 million barrels of oil to spill.
• 2006, Louisiana, some 71,000 barrels of oil were spilled during a storm.
• 2008, two boats collide causing 420,000 gallons of oil to spill.
• 2010, Gulf of Mexico, 20-40 million barrels of oil, and counting.

Oil Spills and Disasters timeline

Size of 2008 spill found at http://www.piersystem.com/go/site/1794/

Obviously major spills do not happen often, and such man made disasters even less (of those listed, only the Exxon Valdez and the current spill are both major and man made). The largest caused by nature was Katrina.

Twenty one years with only two major man made disasters does not seem too bad to me, especially for the faulty self-regulation system.

People are not just calling for an end to self regulation, they are also calling for the punishment of BP. I naturally support a punishment for all those that broke the law, but what people are asking for is not just punishment, but revenge. They are seeing BP as something evil to be the cause of all this harm, but let us examine that.

One estimate puts the eventual cost for the cleanup at 35 billion dollars  ($35,000,000,000). Surely compared to a big evil oil company that’s a drop in the barrel (I could not avoid that pun). Indeed, BP had a revenue the past year of 234.8 billion dollars ($234,800,000,000). Drop in the barrel, right? For those of you that know the basic terminology of finance, you should have spotted the issue with this statement. For the rest of you, revenue is total amount of money brought in, but not saved. That amount is how much BP earned before paying salaries, insurance (which is apparently an in-house company, Jupiter Insurance LTD), taxes, operating cost, and many other things. Their actual income from the past year, 9.125 billion dollars ($9,125,000,000). That is almost a fourth of the estimated cost. (35/9.125=3.8356). If BP were to continue making that annual profit, they would need almost four years to recover the loss.

Still think self-regulation is a failure? Try this. On January 19, 2010 BP had it’s highest stock value this past year of $62.32. As of yesterday, June 1, 2010 $36.52, and today $37.66, so it went up $1.14. As some companies will essentially live and die by their stock values, this does not look good for BP continuing to exist.

Is self-regulation a failure? Maybe the families of those that died on the oil rig have reason to think so, but for the rest of us, it is looking like that system works fine.

Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives.

Among the vicissitudes incident to life, no event could have filled me with greater anxieties than that of which the notification was transmitted by your order, and received on the fourteenth day of the present month. On the one hand, I was summoned by my Country, whose voice I can never hear but with veneration and love, from a retreat which I had chosen with the fondest predilection, and, in my flattering hopes, with an immutable decision, as the asylum of my declining years: a retreat which was rendered every day more necessary as well as more dear to me, by the addition of habit to inclination, and of frequent interruptions in my health to the gradual waste committed on it by time. On the other hand, the magnitude and difficulty of the trust to which the voice of my Country called me, being sufficient to awaken in the wisest and most experienced of her citizens, a distrustful scrutiny into his qualifications, could not but overwhelm with dispondence, one, who, inheriting inferior endowments from nature and unpractised in the duties of civil administration, ought to be peculiarly conscious of his own deficiencies. In this conflict of emotions, all I dare aver, is, that it has been my faithful study to collect my duty from a just appreciation of eve ry circumstance, by which it might be affected. All I dare hope, is, that, if in executing this task I have been too much swayed by a grateful remembrance of former instances, or by an affectionate sensibility to this transcendent proof, of the confidence of my fellow-citizens; and have thence too little consulted my incapacity as well as disinclination for the weighty and untried cares before me; my error will be palliated by the motives which misled me, and its consequences be judged by my Country, with some share of the partiality in which they originated.

Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations, and whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that his benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to his charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence.

By the article establishing the Executive Department, it is made the duty of the President "to recommend to your consideration, such measures as he shall judge necessary and expedient." The circumstances under which I now meet you, will acquit me from entering into that subject, farther than to refer to the Great Constitutional Charter under which you are assembled; and which, in defining your powers, designates the objects to which your attention is to be given. It will be more consistent with those circumstances, and far more congenial with the feelings which actuate me, to substitute, in place of a recommendation of particular measures, the tribute that is due to the talents, the rectitude, and the patriotism which adorn the characters selected to devise and adopt them. In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges, that as on one side, no local prejudices, or attachments; no seperate views, nor party animosities, will misdirect the comprehensive and equal eye which ought to watch over this great assemblage of communities and interests: so, on another, that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the oeconomy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people.

Besides the ordinary objects submitted to your care, it will remain with your judgment to decide, how far an exercise of the occasional power delegated by the Fifth article of the Constitution is rendered expedient at the present juncture by the nature of objections which have been urged against the System, or by the degree of inquietude which has given birth to them. Instead of undertaking particular recommendations on this subject, in which I could be guided by no lights derived from official opportunities, I shall again give way to my entire confidence in your discernment and pursuit of the public good: For I assure myself that whilst you carefully avoid every alteration which might endanger the benefits of an United and effective Government, or wh ich ought to await the future lessons of experience; a reverence for the characteristic rights of freemen, and a regard for the public harmony, will sufficiently influence your deliberations on the question how far the former can be more impregnably fortified, or the latter be safely and advantageously promoted.

To the preceeding observations I have one to add, which will be most properly addressed to the House of Representatives. It concerns myself, and will therefore be as brief as possible. When I was first honoured with a call into the Service of my Country, then on the eve of an arduous struggle for its liberties, the light in which I contemplated my duty required that I should renounce every pecuniary compensation. From this resolution I have in no instance departed. And being still under the impressions which produced it, I must decline as inapplicable to myself, any share in the personal emoluments, which may be indispensably included in a permanent provision for the Executive Department; and must accordingly pray that the pecuniary estimates for the Station in which I am placed, may, during my continuance in it, be limited to such actual expenditures as the public good may be thought to require.

Having thus imported to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since he has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparellelled unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness; so his divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

Bowles has been in touch with Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer about creating a deficit-reduction video game that would enable anyone with a computer to take a stab at balancing the budget, much like the 1994 commission did.

First thing I would do to balance the budget, is cut out junk like that.

Healthcare a human right? Sounds good doesn’t it, but is it really?

Before going into much detail about how healthcare (at least in the form this bill describes and the form of universal healthcare) is not a human right, let us define what is.

The definition I feel best describes a human right is this: a right or power held by man that is ensured by nothing but the existence of man.

Now that we have a definition, lets see what applies.

Freedom of Speech: The ability to speak ones’ mind is inherent to having a mind, which is true of man. This would include freedom of speech, press, and assembly.

Freedom of Thought and Belief: As man has the ability to think man always has the ability to choose what to think and believe. This would include freedom of religion.

Right to Defend: Man has the right and responsibility to defend themselves and their rights, both by action and inaction. The right to bear arms and form a militia would be contained here, but also the stipulation that for assembly to a right it must be peaceful, as an aggressive assembly would threaten another’s rights.

Right to Responsibility: Man has the right to take upon responsibilities.

Right to Will and Choice: Man has the right to act of themselves, their thoughts, beliefs, and responsibilities. Of course the right to defend is no lesser or greater than this.

Armed with a definition and examples, let’s consider if healthcare really is a right.

My stance is that healthcare is not, at least not as the new law describes. Of course, the concept of healthcare would be a right, as we have a right defend our rights, which injury can impair and death certainly would. Does that mean everyone needs to have insurance? No. Should one pay for another’s healthcare? Only by both people’s/parties choice. One should not be forced to give to another, nor should one be forced to receive. That would violate the right to will and choice.

What should exist is a system by which one can get help when needed. Guess what, America? We already have that. Emergency rooms cannot turn anyone away, regardless of preexisting conditions and coverage.

Another way to see that universal healthcare cannot be a human right is also a way to see that the internet is not a human right (Internet access is a fundamental human right, rules French court and Internet access is a ‘fundamental right’). The abilities for universal reactive healthcare and the internet have not existed as long as humanity. How can a “fundamental” human right be so fundamental if humanity could predate it by thousands of years, or I am I just not following Alexander the Great’s Twitter feed?

So what are not human rights?

Universal Healthcare: Humanity predates it.

Internet: Humanity predates it.

An Occupation: This would conflict with the right to will and choice, the right to responsibility, the right to defend, and the freedom of thought and belief. An employer has the right to choose to not hire someone they cannot support or cannot further the occupation. The employer has accepted a responsibility to their patrons by providing a service or product, and hiring those they do not believe can fulfill that responsibility would violate that responsibility. The employer is free to think and decide how best to act defend their responsibilities.

Shelter: Humanity predates shelter, as humans were originally nomadic and could not always stop somewhere with a roof.

Education: Man has a mind and as such learns, but always has the right to choose not to learn, or rather what to learn. As any experienced educator will state, students that do not want to learn will not learn. Those that do want to learn will do so without a school. Should a public education exist? Sure, because education is more often than not a good thing. However, America has been developing an elitist view of education whereby college is required to do everything. This is wrong, which is apparent as, again, humanity predates schools.

I am sure many will disagree with my definition of human rights and my reasoning above for what is and is not a right. That is why there is a comments section below. After all, it is your right to say what you think, to think what you want, and to choose if you wish to state them.