Wrong pilot detained for TFR violation

On Tue, 10 Aug 2004 04:22:20 GMT, "Peter Gottlieb"
wrote:


"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:tJWRc.276896$Oq2.265338@attbi_s52...

Personally, I had no clue why anyone chose to work or live in New York
before 9/11.


A lot of people live in big cities and a lot of them wouldn't live anywhere
else. If you really cannot understand why they feel that way then you will
not understand their attitudes about gun laws and other social issues
(independently of who is more "right" or "wrong").
You are right.

I can understand why some one would want to live in a city, but I've
nver been able to follow their attitudes about social issues and gun
laws. To me their reasoning defies stastics and logic.

OTOH I've never been able to understand how society can ignore nearly
50,000 deaths a year on the highway.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com

Way off topic at this point, but it's late and I can't resist...

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
...
[...]
OTOH I've never been able to understand how society can ignore nearly
50,000 deaths a year on the highway.

The same way society ignores the enormous financial cost from automobile
accidents (fatal and non-fatal). We could spend a much smaller amount of
money on better driving training and enforcement, but Americans would rather
just go around sending their cars to body shops or buying new ones, spending
money on medical insurance, and waiting for their turn at the courtroom
lottery.

The same thing is true for many other areas of American life. People would
rather waste great huge gobs of money than to start paying better attention
and start taking responsibility for their own actions.

The Wars on Drugs and Terrorism are similarly examples of wastes of money;
they remind me of dilatant fluids, in that the more force one applies, the
less one gets done. We'd be much better off with less expensive, more
subtle approaches.

Even when the economy is going well, but especially when it's in the
doldrums, I am disgusted by the amount of economic waste this country
tolerates and even encourages.

Of course, some might argue that the economy actually *benefits* from all
this waste, by creating "churn". I'm no economist, so I won't try to argue
for or against that point. I do think it's trivially obvious that it's
better in the long run to conserve money.

Anyway, whatever point I had, I'm sure it's in there somewhere. I agree
it's ridiculous how we ignore the deaths on the highway, but there's a
fundamental problem with the average person's thinking (if you can call it
that) that will always prevent us from fixing that, along with a number of
other problems.

One of the costs of having a truly equal society is that even the dumb
people get to vote. And there are a lot more dumb people than smart people.


Pete

Peter Duniho wrote:

One of the costs of having a truly equal society is that even the dumb
people get to vote. And there are a lot more dumb people than smart people.

This was really brought home to me the other day. I was putting in a shower fixture
at the appartment of a man who is 101 years old. His daughter handles all his
business. He seems to me to be a pleasant simpleton of a guy -- I'm sure that I won't
be that spry at his age, but that's not saying much.

Somebody at the complex came 'round to make sure he registered to vote and set up an
absentee ballot if he can't make it to the polls. And you are correct that this is a
cost that we must pay -- I certainly can't think of a decent alternative.

George Patterson
In Idaho, tossing a rattlesnake into a crowded room is felony assault.
In Tennessee, it's evangelism.

"Roger Halstead" wrote in message
...

OTOH I've never been able to understand how society can ignore nearly
50,000 deaths a year on the highway.


Yeah, that one mystifies me also. Highway deaths are basically ingored yet
exceed most other causes of death that society seems to go nuts over.

Roger Halstead wrote:

OTOH I've never been able to understand how society can ignore nearly
50,000 deaths a year on the highway.

Probably because, "Highway crashes claimed a total of 42,815 lives in
2002, up from 42,196 in 2001."

http://usgovinfo.about.com/cs/health...rashdeaths.htm

When they climb another 17% or so, then we "can ignore nearly 50,000
deaths a year on the highway."

Considering the amount of driving we do and the ridiculous road design
and maintenance standards coupled with politically correct but
irrational licensing entitlements in the US, the only surprise is that
the total is not closer to 100,000 than 50,000.

However, using the roads in either of our hemispheric neighbors quickly
demonstrates that it could be worse.


Jack