More elected Libertarians cutting waste

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Once again, we see elected Libertarians doing what Democrats don’t want to do and Republicans say they want to do and don’t: cut government waste.

As of November 2006, Lee County, FL now has a Libertarian majority on their Soil & Water Conservation Board. If any of you have wondered (as I have), “What could Libertarians possibly do on a Soil & Water Board?”, then read on:

Chairman Jack Tanner quickly moved through the agenda until he opened the floor to discuss the termination of the mobile irrigation laboratory and our two employees. The next 45 minutes or so were consumed by a series of earnest and emotional pleas by the government managers. Phrases like “millions of gallons wasted” and “billions of gallons saved” were used. Papers were pushed around with columns, charts and graphs. A case was cited in which an elderly, feeble, poor woman, unable to manage her lawn sprinklers, was “saved” by our wonderful program.

Yeah, how wonderful; I’m sure that old lady would have curled up and died without those lawn sprinklers. She would have had no way of properly watering her lawn without a “mobile irrigation laboratory.” Right. Whenever bureaucrats want to justify a wasteful program, they always trot out a little old lady, or children, or some other sympathetic figure and talk about how all these people are “saved” by this useless program. Sometimes I think politicians and bureaucrats should be constantly followed around by violin players.

Anyway, continuing:

The Cape Coral utilities manager was impressive and forceful. At one point he said, “Citizens don’t protect themselves so we have to.” He concluded, “You may as well keep this program because if you don’t we will find a way to continue, and the taxpayers won’t save a dime.”

Yikes! Sounds like the decision to build the new arena in Charlotte despite the voters voting it down, only this guy comes right out and says it! Well, at least he’s honest…

I have heard this threat before. For years myself and a small and determined alliance have successfully fought off a county sales tax. Lee County officials repeatedly scolded us saying, “If you kill this tax we’ll just find another way to raise taxes.” Ever since I was a child, threats and intimidation have provided me with the energy and determination to do the opposite and face the consequences.

I waited until everyone had their say. I started by telling a familiar but fictional story. I said, “Imagine county police coming to my home and taking my wife to jail in handcuffs because I failed to pay a fine for making unnecessary trips in my car and wasting gasoline. Imagine her living with a criminal record caused by a law she didn’t know existed.” I went on, “We don’t make criminals out of people who waste gasoline because we have a relatively free market in gasoline. We do make criminals out of people who waste water because we don’t have a free market in water distribution.”

Exactly! I’ll have to remember this story…

You can read the article here, and I have more comments below.

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Sad news

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Yes, I’ve been putting off making this blog entry. But sometimes one just needs the courage to soldier on.

As you can read in this story from the AP Newswire, my daughter and I were severely injured and my wife killed when a drunk driver hit us head-on on the interstate.

I am happy to report, however, that Aleena is now walking and I am able to start putting some weight on my right foot. It’ll be awhile before I join her among the ranks of the ambulatory, but I’ll get there in time. The healing process is going rather well. My right humerus was shattered, so it’ll be even longer before I can use that arm for anything other than light duty (such as typing), but it, too, will heal in time. The prognosis has always been that we’ll both make a complete recovery. We’re both very fortunate that no nerves were severed and that there was no serious internal or brain damage; it was quite a crash.

I’d like to thank everyone who has supported and continues to support us during this difficult time. Of course, there’s my immediate family, taking us in until we’re ready to get back on our own again; the rescue workers and hospital staff in West Virginia who were so incredibly great; so many people from Unity Presbyterian Church who gave us so much help and support, from the funeral to building a very professional wheelchair ramp; my friends in the Libertarian Party (especially the ones who set up a special blog for outreach and updates) and the skeptic movement (primarily the JREF) who gave their well-wishes, support, and even generous donations…there are just so many people to thank I can’t even think of them all right now, thanks so much to all of you.

And most of all, thank you, Joey, my beautiful wife. You changed my life in ways you never even could have imagined; you changed me in so many ways I can’t describe. I miss you so much, sweetie. I’ll always love you.

When will people learn?

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So I’m watching one of those Lifetime movies with my wife and a commercial comes on for this woman, Lisa Williams, doing the whole Talking-to-the-Dead scam (no, no link–I just can’t bring myself to bring a scam artist’s site up in the Google ranks). After the Sci-Fi Channel finally stopped showing that hack con man John Edward, and it seemed like the whole cold reading phenomenon was at least going out of vogue, now up pops another head in this game of psychic Whack-A-Mole.

Billed as a "reality" series, it looks more like watching one of David Blaine’s lame specials as the cameras follow her around from one mark to the next. At one point in the commercial, she asks one man who David is, and his jaw drops. Of course, you know he’s going to end up saying, "Oh, she knew my father/uncle/whoever’s name was David!" No, she didn’t–she asked you who David was! (Does anyone really think they’re going to show the times where she gave out names that were wrong? Can anyone say "confirmation bias"?)

Unfortunately, Lifetime’s audience seems to be much less intelligent and sophisticated than that of the Sci-Fi Channel, and John Edward ran for years. Time to call in Penn & Teller, James Randi, Michael Shermer, the Center for Inquiry, etc. One more target on the range.

Ah, well. The skeptic’s work is never done…

Traffic lights make roads LESS safe

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First, there was the data that showed that getting rid of speed limits made drivers safer and reduced fatalities. Then there was the finding that road signs make us less safe by lulling us into a false sense of security. Now, it appears that traffic lights unnecessarily slow down traffic and make us less safe as well, according to an article in The Telegraph:

Most traffic lights should be torn up as they make roads less safe, one of Europe’s leading road engineers said yesterday.

Hans Monderman, a traffic planner involved in a Brussels-backed project known as Shared Space, said that taking lights away helped motorists, cyclists and pedestrians to co-exist more happily and safely.

In this experiment, almost all of the traffic lights were eliminated from a Dutch town. There used to be a traffic fatality every three years; now, there are none.

There have been a few small collisions, but these are almost to be encouraged, Mr Monderman explained. “We want small accidents, in order to prevent serious ones in which people get hurt,” he said yesterday.

“It works well because it is dangerous, which is exactly what we want. But it shifts the emphasis away from the Government taking the risk, to the driver being responsible for his or her own risk.

“We only want traffic lights where they are useful and I haven’t found anywhere where they are useful yet.”

And it’s an advantage for both drivers and pedestrians:

Thus far, Drachten’s drivers and pedestrians have voted the experiment a success.

“I am used to it now,” said Helena Spaanstra, 24. “You drive more slowly and carefully, but somehow you seem to get around town quicker.”

Tony Ooostward, 70, was equally enthusiastic. “Everybody is learning. I am a walker and now you are the boss at the crossroads, everyone waits for you. But at the same time pedestrians wait until there are a number wanting to cross at the same time.”

Kanaan Jamal, 39, like many people in Drachten, uses a bike to get around. “It is very smooth — a lot better than other towns,” he said. The consensus is that the creation of uncertainty by taking away the lights and even in some places the road markings has worked.

You can read the entire article here.

81% vote against new tax!

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I’m feeling a bit more faith in my home county. Yesterday, 81% of Lincoln County voters rejected the Special Tax Referendum, which would have imposed an additional 5 cents per $100 on property taxes, ostensibly for recreation facilities. Ordinarily, referenda pass almost blindly, usually by a landslide. Not this year. So, now will our commissioners and other Lincoln County officials finally get the idea that we don’t like being taxed as much as we are?

Also, Lincoln County voters defeated the Districting referendum by almost 60%. I’m so glad my fellow residents saw through the fraud that districting comprises. I can understand the appeal of districting, and how it seems to be a more fair way of doing things, but considering that we hadn’t even voted on it and the proposed districts were already gerrymandered, it seems that this referendum is best left dead.

You can see the election results for Lincoln County here.

To Serve Webs

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Yes, it’s another server move–and now I’m finally back on Linux (yaaay!) and the site is again built with PHP (double-yaaay!!!). Guess what? That means more new features (see the pretty pictures on each entry? Categories, man!) and no more of the Windows Server “I’ll deliver your web page when I feel like it and not a second before” attitude!

I’ve also helped my wife, Joanne Burch-Killian, set up the same blog on her website. Check it out!

So, what have I been up to?

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Just a brief update of Things Going On In My Life:

I’m married to a wonderful woman, the woman of my dreams, she who lights up my day and warms up my night, Joanne Burch-Killian;
She and I are partners of WebAppExpressions.com;
We’re also the creators and sponsors of GuamIslandChat.com;
We now have six children all total, Joanne’s four and my two;
I’m having to come to terms with suddenly being a grandfather since three of her children have children as well;
This sudden burst in the number of relatives I have means I have even more work to do on my genealogy (hopefully it’ll get posted here someday);
I still need sleep.

We recently visited her children in Michigan. Her youngest son, Sean, is attending college and is now engaged to a wonderful girl named Morgan. We spent Sean’s birthday with them, and we also visited her son Miguel, with his daughters and his new baby boy. Aleena didn’t want to leave! We also visited her son Jonathan and his son Chase. Our two families have merged together wonderfully.

We’re back in NC now and Aleena’s already asking when we can go back. Hopefully it won’t be snowing then!

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Libertarian Party sues State of North Carolina

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The Libertarian Party of North Carolina filed suit today in Superior Court to have the state’s unfair election laws declared unconstitutional. You can read the complaint as filed here. There is also a Motion For Temporary Restraining Order And Preliminary Injunction to get our candidates back on the ballot for the 2003 elections.

I have calculated that almost 130,000 North Carolina voters voted for at least one Libertarian in 2004, probably more. I say, their vote should count. If the Democrats and Republicans can’t stand the heat, I, for one, would be glad to let them step aside.