David Paterson – Another Intellectually Fraudulent Argument
New York governor David Paterson is enacting taxes on unhealthy foods including sugary soft-drinks because their calories and effects on obesity are costly to society. Paterson draws comparisons between the obesity-causing foods/drinks and (cue the evil music) cigarettes. Then in the last line of his diatribe, he uses the political “free parking” card like in Monopoly. “Isn’t it worth our kids’ lives?”
Horseshit. I am all for people being healthier and attacking obesity. I made a lot of choices in my own life over the last three years or so to help make myself better in these areas. But, I think you walk into dangerous territory if you are always working backwards from the question of whether the ends justify the means in terms of government legislation.
On top of that, the cigarette comparison is intellectually fraudulent. The two situations are completely different. The smoking bans came into effect in New York (and many other states) NOT because smoking is bad for smokers. It was passed because of second-hand smoke and employees’ rights to not inhale patrons’ poisonous emissions.
Until fast food joints and Coca-Cola bottles can make you fatter just by walking by them, I don’t think you can truly justify a tax on the foods and the sugary soft drinks for sale in 7/11. In one case you are making sure employees have the choice whether to inhale smoke in their lives no matter where they work. The other case you are legislating preference by discriminating against a certain set of choices.
So stop drawing fraudulent comparisons and please don’t hide behind the “kids” excuse.
Now, if you can make a compelling argument that isn’t fraudulent, I will listen. But as of right now, and your current argument, this dog won’t hunt.
My First Apple Complaint
It has been quite a while since I jumped on the Apple bandwagon. I mean, I certainly don’t have two feet on it because I still love my PC’s, but still. I bought my original 40 gig iPod with the monochrome screen. Then I bought the 60 gig iPod photo. Then I bought my first Nano, which was 4 gigs. That led to an 8 gig Nano as I fell in love with the Nike+ running rig. Mixed into the iPod craze, I bought a MacBook Pro and a copy of Apple LogicPro so that I could do music production at home. Finally, yesterday after my hold button broke on my 8 gig Nano, it was time to buy a new one.
I am a bigtime power user of my Nano. It isn’t Apple’s fault that the hold button broke on my 8 gig one. I use that thing every day for hours and hours on end. In all, over the last year, I have listened to every minute of two national radio shows whose running times combined regularly hit 7 hours per day. Combine that with all the Smodcasts (Kevin Smith and Scott Mosier,) audio books, songs and other pieces of audio that I listen to, I certainly get my money’s worth out of the device.
So, now I needed to replace my Nano with a new one so it could keep track of my renewed interest in jogging with the Nike + system. I spent $200 for a 16 gig of the latest variety of Nano and I started using it. For me, this means plugging it into my PC. It means plugging it in in my bedroom to my Altec Lansing peripherals. It means plugging it in in the car with my iPlay and headphone jack into the car stereo. That is how I listen to it and keep it charged throughout the day.
Well, the latest version of the Nano works just find syncing with the PC, but none of my other charging options work. The Altec Lansing speaker system which has worked on every iPod I have ever owned tells me that charging is unsupported on this iPod. Then this morning it told me the same thing in the car. Great.
A little bit of research reveals that Apple decided to cut some corners. Apparently when apple moved away from the Firewire charging process to the USB one, they begged all the peripheral makers to do it too. This is a change from 12v to 5v in the adapter. So, finally, in this latest generation, Apple has decided to save a few cents per iPod and do away with the converter that would allow me (and countless others) to use the peripherals that I have surrounded myself with over the course of not 1, not 2, but 5 different iPods. All those dollars that I spent are now completely worthless because they no longer serve a purpose in the way I have it set up in my life.
And maybe it isn’t a big deal to me to have to go out and buy a new charging cable for my car and a new speaker system for my bedroom, but that should be for me to decide, not Apple. Backwards compatibility is important when you are trying to make people adopt you into their culture, or even adopt new culture. Since I spent all the time and money doing it, Apple shouldn’t punish me after they have me all committed. Certainly they shouldn’t do it over what some people describe as a few cents.
Wrong Again Jemele Hill… Wrong Again
Jemele Hill is on ESPN’s Page 2 talking about Plaxico Burress today and once again, she is driving me insane. She makes some decent points about how the media is letting Burress’ allegedly complicit teammate off the hook, but then she saves some criticism for New York City Mayor Bloomberg and she falls off the rails.
I’m not saying Burress deserves any sympathy, because the moment he decided to attend a nightclub with an unlicensed, loaded firearm tucked in his waistband, he was jeopardizing his life and the lives of others. But did Burress’ actions warrant Bloomberg’s irrational grandstanding? You’d think the mayor of the nation’s largest city would have bigger concerns than the stupidity of a professional athlete. But since when do politicians pass on an opportunity to make themselves the center of attention?
“If we don’t prosecute him to the fullest extent of the law, I don’t know who on earth would,” Bloomberg said Monday. “It makes a sham, a mockery of the law. And it’s pretty hard to argue the guy didn’t have a gun and that it wasn’t loaded. You’ve got bullet holes in and out to show that it was there.”
First of all, the whole argument of, “I would think this guy would have bigger problems” is a commonly used argument that logistically is a sham. We are complex beings and we can do multiple things at once. I am surprised Jemele Hill has time to write articles when she isn’t keeping herself alive by eating and breathing while living under shelter. You see how stupid that is? The mayor of New York can express concern about someone blatantly violating NYC gun laws while still paying attention to any number of other things. They aren’t mutually exclusive. Please can we stop using this argument?
Jemele further digs into a hole with some race baiting.
Why wasn’t the mayor as willing to stand on his soapbox when New York City police officers shot and killed Sean Bell? Bloomberg called for a “thorough” investigation at that time, but he didn’t damn those police officers the way he did Burress. (All three officers were acquitted earlier this year.)
(Head ready to explode.) POLICE OFFICERS DESERVE THE BENEFIT OF THE DOUBT. PLAXICO BURRESS IS NOT A POLICE OFFICER. On top of this, if you read about the Sean Bell case it isn’t as clear cut as an athlete who is CLEARLY guilty of having a gun in a place where he wasn’t allowed to have a gun, without a license and also handling it in about as hazardous a manner as you can handle a firearm, short of giving it to a child in a crib.
Finally Jemele cements herself as a desperate columnist who will stop at nothing to make a point even if it is based in non-sequiters and base level emotional manipulation. IE the economy is hurting people right now. I will link Bloomberg to the bailout and Wall Street in order to criticize his opinion on unlicensed guns floating around the city he is responsible for.
I also wonder why Bloomberg didn’t act this outraged after the American people were forced to bail out some of his Wall Street buddies because of their bad decisions?
Do you wonder why? I don’t. He might be outraged, but it isn’t necessarily in his best interest or under his jurisdiction to make a comment about his Wall Street buddies. Someone carrying a gun in the city is a Bloomberg issue. Wall Street’s federal bailout is NOT necessarily a Bloomberg issue. See, there is no need to wonder. It is easy to see.
Then again, what could I possibly expect from a “columnist” who is so consistently off the mark and hypocritical.
