Tag: Politics

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Childhood obesity

Several months ago I started seeing and hearing numerous ads about childhood obesity. It kind of surprised me that there was a huge campaign to fight it that just appeared when this problem has been known for years. It sickens me to see overweight children. People blame computers and video games for many of the problems. While I’m not going to disagree with that, I think the problem lies in the habits parents teach their children. I use a computer 10+ hours a day for work and other things; however, I make it a point to go for a run 4-5 times a week and carve out that time in my schedule. In addition, I watch what I eat. I was never raised to drink soda all the time or have chips everyday for lunch. Society can be partially blamed for this, but maybe parental influence can also play a factor in preventing this. I don’t have children, so I don’t know how hard this is, but it would appear (from an outsider’s point of view) that good and bad habits start in the home.

I hope that the new initiatives against childhood obesity work as this problem is getting worse and is not only disgusting, it will cost our country a significant amount of lives (and quality of life for those who have it) and will be quite costly monetarily to treat the health problems associated with this.

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Franchise Tax Board is incompetent

Several months ago, I blogged about the Franchise Tax Board somehow losing my tax payment. For the last 2+ months, I’ve been calling them to find out the story and was promised a call back a number of times. No one ever called me back and I called them again today. This time, I got a different story…I had to make the payment AND the interest and penalty. So the $68.81 penalty and interest has now gone up to $92.31 because they’d been jerking me around for 2 months. This is not to mention the $20 stop payment fee I have to pay the bank so that the original payment doesn’t get cashed. I’m going to send the damn payment today by certified mail (or registered letter) to ensure that they get it and I can put this behind me. I can’t believe I have to pay an additional $23.50 due to their incompetence. My future tax payments are going to be sent certified or registered. I don’t have the time or patience to deal with their stupidity.

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That damn cross, again

Congress, senate, and the president decided to bypass a court ruling and enact a law to transfer the Mt. Soledad cross to the United States government. There seems to be much rejoicing by our mayor and city council members about this; rightfully so, the city no longer has to pay to defend the cross that shouldn’t be there; the federal government will now be entangled in the legal battle about a religious symbol on government property. As I’ve said before (I think), I have no problems with people’s religious beliefs as long as they are not imposed on me and likewise I will not impose my religious beliefs on others. Not only is this cross on land that I, as a taxpayer, own, my tax dollars are now paying to keep this religious symbol. The cross just needs to be moved and then the matter will be over.

It appears to me that in the last few years (probably since George W. Bush came into office), that our country has brought religion more into politics. I don’t seem to recall stupid laws, rulings, etc. being so prominent prior to 2000. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention or maybe the president has decided that his sole purpose in office is to make everyone belief in his right wing conserative Christian beliefs. This kind of imposing religion on others (which is being done by the law about stem cells, limiting abortion, etc.) seems to be what radical extremist in Iraq, Iran, and the rest of the Middle East are trying to do.

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Airport Security

Last SUnday, we returned from our week long trip to San Francisco/San Jose and as usual came back on a plane. This was our first flight after the new rules about no liquids and the increased paranoia about terrorism. The San Jose airport didn’t appear to have tighetened security and we passed through security without problems as usual. Most people seemed to be adjusting to the new rules. When we arrived in San Diego, I saw national guard troops at the gates apparently inspecting all carry on luggage. The difference in security at the airports makes you go “hmmm”. It isn’t unusual to have different rules and practices at different airports, but if the government is serious about security, it needs to be consistent. What kind of scared me about the troops is that they had a bucket full of confiscated liquids and gels; this was at the gate where all the passengers had already passed through the security checkpoint. Were the security screeners asleep at the wheel? Shouldn’t everything have been searched before hand?

I’m not convinced that the screening at the airport will really prevent terrorism. In my opinion, the only effective way to counter terrorism is through intelligence like the plot foiled in the UK. If I thought hard enough, I’m sure I could find holes in airport security, but since I’m not a terrorist, I won’t spend time thinking about it.

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Can’t people read?

I’m sure not all smokers are inconsiderate idiots, but it seems that many I encounter are. At the airport last Sunday, I couldn’t help but to shake my head at the smoker in this picture sitting on the bench that says “Thank you For Not Smoking”. It was kind of tricky to get the picture without looking too suspicious. Click on the left picture and then look closely at the bench; an enlargement of the sign is in the second picture.

SmokerNo Smoking Sign

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Better late than never

It looks like I wasn’t the only one to notice how the state used power to tell people to conserve energy. Today’s San Diego Union Tribune ran a story about this and said it cost $6000 to ran the 395 signs around the state. I guess not everyone reads my blog, so it had to get published in the paper. Now, isn’t that a great way to spend our tax dollars and conserve energy? Do people not realize that they need to conserve energy? Probably not if they’re like the president and don’t believe that our use of fossil fuels is contributing to global warming.

Further on this topic, there is an article (and it was on the local news) that people are going to have higher electricity bills because they’ve been running the air conditioning and fans all the time. To that I have to say, duh.

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Mandating Safety

I’m not a huge fan of the government mandating anything, but now, more than ever, believe that the government needs to start mandating more safety in cars. Specifically, I think that a) all cell phones must come with Bluetooth and b) all cars should come with Bluetooth for handsfree cell phone use. People argue that it isn’t the act of holding a handset that causes accidents, it is the distraction. Well, that may be true, but I’m sure that if people weren’t holding phones, they would have better reaction time in case of an accident and be able to navigate cars better. This won’t solve everything, but the cost is pretty minor; several years ago Jeep/Chrysler announced the UConnect system for many of its newer vehicles at a cost of something like $300 as a dealer installed option. Now if this was standard on all vehicles, the cost would be lower (less labor involved in installing it when the car is open and the number of units purchased would cause the cost to go down). If we say that the kit costs $300 and someone purchases a vehicle over 5 years at 7% interest rate, the extra cost for this would be $5.94 per month. Is that a lot? No, it is the cost of a few cups of coffee.

As for the Bluetooth handsets, many carriers think Bluetooth is a high end phone option instead of a standard item. Again, the cost isn’t all that high and it would be needed to work with the cars. Furthermore, carriers (Verizon and Sprint in particular) need to stop crippling or accepting half baked Bluetooth implementations. The standard handsfree, headset, and OBEX profiles are needed to make car kits and cars with built-in Bluetooth function properly.

Would I write this even if I didn’t put my own handsfree kit in my car? Absolutely. My next car (and my wife’s next car) will definitely have Bluetooth in it for handsfree calling. It definitely won’t solve the problem of distracted drivers, but it really does help keep two hands on the wheel.

On a side note, I received my first call on my handsfree kit while driving today. It was so neat to be able to not have to fumble answering the phone (even with a headset you have to make sure it is in and find the right button and be able to keep my hands on the wheel.

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Why an alcohol ban?

One of the hot topics in San Diego (at least at the beach according to the media) is the proposed alcohol ban at the beaches. Proponents say that it will cut down on rowdiness and make the beach more family oriented. At first I thought it was a good idea (I don’t drink as I don’t like the taste of alcohol), so it wouldn’t negatively affect me. However, after thinking about it for a bit on my run this morning at the beach, it seems like the wrong thing to do. If the city wanted to clean up the beaches, it should enforce the laws already on the books, such as public intoxication, disorderly conduct, alcohol along the seawall, etc. There seem to be plenty of laws that would already help, but they’re a little harder to spot. Alcohol is easy to spot…look for case of beer in someone’s hand.

Laws just don’t seem to be enforced at the beach such as littering (smoking and then flicking ashes is littering), dogs off leash, dogs on leash during hours they shouldn’t be there, failure of cars to yield to pedestrians (not right at the beach, but near the beach), etc. Just what we need, another law that won’t be enforced.

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More waste of taxpayer money and complete injustice

Well, today, Justice Anthony Kennedy granted a stay allowing the cross on Mt. Soledad to stay in place at least temporarily. Both sides of the issue are interpreting it in different ways. If the supreme court accepts the case, I think it will be a bad precedent as the law (in my eyes) is quite clear that the cross doesn’t belong there and courts for the last 15 years or so seem to agree with me. It will be even worse if the supreme court sides with the city of San Diego and allows the cross to remain in place. In any case, this is a complete waste of taxpayer money, both city and federal government.

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Government incompetence

I received a notice last week that I hadn’t paid the tax for my company and I owed $70 in penalties. This had me fuming mad because I had a copy of the check I sent in March and the check was included in my tax return; how did the state process the tax return to know how much I owed without seeing the check? I called the Franchise Tax Board on Friday and spoke to a representative that said he’d send a note for the returns people to look for it (the check hadn’t been cashed) and he’d give me a call back. Today is Tuesday and I never heard from him, so I called back. The problem with calling back is that the automated system wouldn’t let me wait on hold because the system was too bogged down. So, 10 or so calls later, I got put on hold and then transferred to someone. The lady said that I needed to stop payment on the check (she didn’t bother looking up my account), fax in a copy of the stop payment and send a new check. She didn’t bother giving me the fax number.

I started looking at stopping payment on the check and sending all the stuff to the state. My bank wants $20 to stop payment on the check. So now that the state lost my check (I did send it), I’ll be out $20 and hours of my time trying to resolve this issue. I’m going to call back tomorrow to find out if they found my check and what they’ll do about covering the $20 stop payment fee. How can the government be so incompetent?