Yesterday, near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, two homemade bombs were set off. 3 people were killed, over a hundred injured, about 20 of those seriously. A horrible, horrible tragedy. Things like that are the product of deranged, angry people whose soul is so warped and cowardly that to stop them completely is likely impossible.
A few other thoughts about what happened...thoughts that are probably not popular, but hey, nobody reads this anyway.
1)The bombing was on 'tax day', April 15, and also recognized as 'patiots' day' in New England. I'm sure that it's been brought up by somebody but I've rarely heard it...does it not seem rather obvious that this was a symbolic day for somebody to show their government-hating bondafides?
2)Many people are comparing this to 9/11. Um, no. In that over 3000 people were killed after a huge organizational plot that was years in the making. This one killed 0.1% of the people in that attack and was likely the work of a lone lunatic. It was horrible, absolutely...but let's have some perspective. This wasn't even close to the OKC Murrah bombing, and likely not nearly as internationally traumatic as the Atlanta Olympics bombing.
3)Naturally, we are hearing now about how 'this changes everything'. We're going to have more concerns about security at sporting events, at theaters, at anywhere where there are public gatherings. But then, every few months somebody opens up with mega-weaponry in schools or post offices or from clock towers and kills ten times the number killed yesterday, and we say we should do nothing about it? We refuse to do anything to change the possibility of those situations in the name of 'rights'. We could do something about mass killings, but we're scared to death to confront a minority of the population with the fact that they have wholly misinterpreted the intent of the Constitution. About guns, we could make relevant and real attempts to cut down on the violence. But about things that we likely can do little to prevent, we continue pretending we can stop them with worthless, feel-good 'precautions'. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.
Tuesday, April 16, 2013
Friday, April 12, 2013
Decrees I will Dictate when I am a Despot
#1: Line-item veto of cable TV channels.
By my count I have about 125 channels. I don't have the spanish tier, nor the catch-all tier (Disney XD! Sprout! Great American Country! MTV35!) nor any of the movie channels. I have basic cable and a sports tier and a few others that the cable company throws in for 'free' with our cable box. Some of the channels are repeated in HD, others are not. We almost never watch anything that isn't in HD.
Out of the 125 channels, I would guess that my family watches only about 15-20 channels. Kids have their Disney channel and NickJr. We watch the networks, a few basic cable channels, and probably 6-8 sports channels. In particular I have the sports tier for Fox Soccer channel, which is going away at the end of summer, and NBC sports network which has more and more soccer. The other hundred channels we don't even know exist...when the NCAA tournament was on a few weeks ago and had some first-round games on TruTV, I had not turned to that channel since last year when games were also on TruTV. I think it's channel 2051. Not sure...if they moved them there to get people interested in the channel it didn't take on me.
I don't care about BET. I don't have any interest in Fox News. I could care less about NASA TV, the tennis channel, or E! The Longhorn channel is in the wrong state. Let them all go far, far away and I'll be fine.
But to get the channels my family likes, I have to pay for them. Cox sends each of these channels a small residual each month to pay for my subscription. For a few of them it may be pennies and a few may not cost anything at all. But I'd suspect those 100 channels add up to something.
I understand that they arrange their pay structures so that everybody can have many choices, and that we subsidize the less popular channels I understand that, and I suppose that if paying a little bit for the NHL network means somebody else will pay so that I can watch Fox Soccer, than maybe it makes sense.
But what I'm surprised about is that my free-market friends are not up in arms about this. Subsidizing one channel by viewers of another? That's socialism! If I get enough of my conservative friends to read this maybe it will become an issue, as long as their obsession with guns is starting to fade away.
I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world. Who knows, maybe I'll start watching TCM or A&E or Telemundo someday. Maybe this shouldn't be my first decree as despot. But it still annoys me, and that's what good despots do, take care of things that annoy them.
The day is coming when we'll be able to pick only the channels we want. Everything will be pay-per-view, and my reign as despot will be off to a good start.
By my count I have about 125 channels. I don't have the spanish tier, nor the catch-all tier (Disney XD! Sprout! Great American Country! MTV35!) nor any of the movie channels. I have basic cable and a sports tier and a few others that the cable company throws in for 'free' with our cable box. Some of the channels are repeated in HD, others are not. We almost never watch anything that isn't in HD.
Out of the 125 channels, I would guess that my family watches only about 15-20 channels. Kids have their Disney channel and NickJr. We watch the networks, a few basic cable channels, and probably 6-8 sports channels. In particular I have the sports tier for Fox Soccer channel, which is going away at the end of summer, and NBC sports network which has more and more soccer. The other hundred channels we don't even know exist...when the NCAA tournament was on a few weeks ago and had some first-round games on TruTV, I had not turned to that channel since last year when games were also on TruTV. I think it's channel 2051. Not sure...if they moved them there to get people interested in the channel it didn't take on me.
I don't care about BET. I don't have any interest in Fox News. I could care less about NASA TV, the tennis channel, or E! The Longhorn channel is in the wrong state. Let them all go far, far away and I'll be fine.
But to get the channels my family likes, I have to pay for them. Cox sends each of these channels a small residual each month to pay for my subscription. For a few of them it may be pennies and a few may not cost anything at all. But I'd suspect those 100 channels add up to something.
I understand that they arrange their pay structures so that everybody can have many choices, and that we subsidize the less popular channels I understand that, and I suppose that if paying a little bit for the NHL network means somebody else will pay so that I can watch Fox Soccer, than maybe it makes sense.
But what I'm surprised about is that my free-market friends are not up in arms about this. Subsidizing one channel by viewers of another? That's socialism! If I get enough of my conservative friends to read this maybe it will become an issue, as long as their obsession with guns is starting to fade away.
I suppose it's not the worst thing in the world. Who knows, maybe I'll start watching TCM or A&E or Telemundo someday. Maybe this shouldn't be my first decree as despot. But it still annoys me, and that's what good despots do, take care of things that annoy them.
The day is coming when we'll be able to pick only the channels we want. Everything will be pay-per-view, and my reign as despot will be off to a good start.
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