Posted by Ben
Thu, 08 Sep 2005 05:51:00 GMT
Congress has already approved 10 billion for Katrina relief, and is set to pass a bill approving another 50 billion. (I can’t even fathom that much money).
Estimating that 150 million people pay taxes this year, that means that, on average, we each will contribute $333 dollars to the relief fund.
Since I’m an average guy, and given that there are 2 taxpayers in my household, I figure we’ve already given almost $700!
Such generosity!
Posted in Politics | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Thu, 08 Sep 2005 04:01:00 GMT
WASHINGTON—The federal government plans to hand out debit cards worth $2,000 each to families displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
—From the Washington Post
“I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on the objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents.” — James Madison
(link)
With respect to the two words “general welfare,” I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators. — James Madison
(link)
First of all, these quotes could easily be taken to say that I would deny aid to the people affected by Katrina. That is far from the truth.
In fact, I think that the current political system has deprived the country of a chance to make a huge statement with regard to how the US responds to disaster. Instead of being a chance for individual Americans to unite by sacrificing time and money to help people back on their feet, we have the government to do all that for us.
I am exaggerating, of course, because there is still much for individuals to do in the relief effort, and a great amount of that type of service is being given. Still, it would be something special if our Federal government respected its constitutional bounds (which is has long since forgotten about, judging from the types of laws coming out of congress lately), and instead, the People themselves would be allowed to put in their efforts, in cooperation with the local governments, who should be leading the effort in the first place.
How different would that be from the socialist economies and governments of Europe? Aah, but it is not to be.
I got started thinking in this vein a while ago when I stumbled across the account of Davy Crockett, when a similiar bill of charity was brought up in the House a long time ago.
“Mr. Speaker—I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the suffering of the living, if there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has not the power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member on this floor knows it.
“We have the right as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I ever heard that the government was in arrears to him.
“Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”
Crocket then goes on to give an account of the man who helped him come to this conviction. At the end of the story, we read:
“There is one thing which I will call your attention, “you remember that I proposed to give a week’s pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men – men who think nothing of spending a week’s pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased—a debt which could not be paid by money—and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $20,000 when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it.”
Read the entire story (which is well worth your time).
Posted in Politics | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Sat, 03 Sep 2005 05:32:00 GMT
“For the past few days, I have found the news from New Orleans to be confusing. People were not behaving as you would expect them to behave in an emergency—indeed, they were not behaving as they have behaved in other emergencies. That is what has shocked so many people…
“When confronted with a disaster, people usually rise to the occasion. They work together to rescue people in danger, and they spontaneously organize to keep order and solve problems. This is especially true in America. We are an enterprising people, used to relying on our own initiative rather than waiting around for the government to take care of us…
“So what explains the chaos in New Orleans?”
From: An Unnatural Disaster: A Hurricane Exposes the Man-Made Disaster of the Welfare State
Posted in News, Politics | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Fri, 02 Sep 2005 02:18:00 GMT
I am so stoked for football season this year. Of course, I’m stoked for football season every year, but this year is different. I have a ton of optimism about this revamped BYU team we have here.
Of course, my excitement isn’t helped much with quotes like this:
Are the rookies, the vets and this new and retooled Cougar offense ready?
“No doubt in my mind,” Anae said.
Why?
“I’m not telling,” he said.
(from the Deseret News)
Bwahahahahah! I love it!
Update (9/4/05)
Heh, guess they weren’t ready after all.
Posted in Personal | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 03:19:00 GMT
Amazing pictures over at flickr.
2074535
Originally uploaded by John Hay.
no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Wed, 31 Aug 2005 02:45:00 GMT
USA Today Article
Joy Schovest, 55, was in the apartment complex with her boyfriend, Joe Calvin, when the water began rising. They stayed despite a mandatory evacuation order.
”The water got higher and higher,” she said, breaking into tears. “It pushed all the doors open and we swam out. We grabbed a lady and pulled her out the window and then we swam with the current. It was terrifying. You should have seen the cars floating around us. We had to push them away when we were trying to swim.”
You know, sometimes I wonder how some people get through life. Its very appearant that common sense wasn’t divfied up equally. How hard is it to understand the a hurricane is a mighty dangerous thing, and riding it out in an apartment building is not exactly the best idea.
The article also talks about 300 people sitting on their roofs waiting to be rescued. The only people among that group that I have any sympathy for are the emergency police/fire personnel who were waiting to help with the relief effort. Even still, there had to be better places for these guys to wait besides their houses.
I know of one person who said that she was going to ride out the storm and if it was her time, God would take her. That attitude amazes me. Its putting yourself in such needless danger and then demanding a miracle.
Here’s a thought, how about going to the nearest freeway, putting on a blindfold, and starting to walk across the freeway while saying, “If its not my time God will protect me.” The danger in that case is just as needless as those people waiting out the hurricane who had the capacity to evacuate the area.
This is a truly serious disaster, which I’m sure will take a lot of time to get cleaned up. That doesn’t mean, however, that people have the license to be bone-heads.
Posted in News | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Tue, 30 Aug 2005 01:43:00 GMT
So, I began the first day of my last year of BYU today. I have a pretty heavy load of 3 Electrical Engineering classes, each with a heavy lab component. Overall, the classes are interesting to me, so hopefully that helps me through the pile of work I have ahead of me.
There is one thing that continually bothers me about my college (Engineering and Technology), though: grading. Here at BYU (as at a lot of schools, I’m sure) some departments and colleges are becoming much more aware of grade inflation, and are trying to reign the grades back in. Overall, I’m I think this is a good practice, especially as it relates to the very subjective subjects like the humanities, etc.
My college and department have taken it upon themselves to set the standard for grade deflation. My first teacher told us that the department got after him last year for having grades that were too high. What amazes me is that the class is a very time-consuming one, where much of the grade comes from lab assignments. These aren’t subjective value-judgements about how good or not good a paper is. The labs we have to do have to WORK.
Of course we also have tests and assignments in addition to the labs, which all help to give the teacher an idea of our abilities. These, too, are pretty objective measures. You either get the right answer or you don’t. You use the correct process or you don’t.
My big problem with the extreme focus on grade deflation is it encourages the teachers to make things harder than they need to be. To have a department-enforced grade curve means the teachers have to purposely find ways to fail a certain number of their class. The focus changes from teaching to a game of wits. What if a great teacher really knew how to put across material to a group of bright senior engineering students? Not possible in our college.
I’ve had a couple of classes where it seemed like the teacher was holding back critical info. The only way one of my buddies (arguably the smartest in the class) got through things was to spend almost every waking moment in the teacher’s office. There’s something wrong with that. I’m all for office hours being there to help, but they shouldn’t be a requirement.
More later….I’ve got a class
Posted in Personal | 1 comment | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Sat, 27 Aug 2005 03:14:00 GMT
Humans Are Ones on Display at London Zoo
”Seeing people in a different environment, among other animals … teaches members of the public that the human is just another primate,” Wills said.
Yeah. A natural man.
no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Sat, 20 Aug 2005 11:41:00 GMT
Well, I’ve had another little change in my employment. My current employer wasn’t too keen on losing me, so they counter-offered to get me to stay.
After a lot of thinking, and rethinking, I’ve decided to stay on for the next little while. I really would like to finish up some of the projects I have goinng there.
Also, staying at this job at least until I graduat from BYU in april is probably the best idea. At that point I hope to move into a job in my field. I think having the same job throughout my college career will probably be the best thing for my resume.
I just hope that I can learn what I need to to get a firmware/FPGA job locally here in Salt Lake. I think that’s what I’m goinng to be best suited for with my electronics interest added to my ability to program code.
Posted in Personal | no comments | no trackbacks
Posted by Ben
Mon, 15 Aug 2005 03:45:00 GMT
This past week was the annual LDS Booksellers Assosiation convention down in Sandy, Utah. I’ve had the opportunity to attend a number of these conventions during the past 5 years that i’ve worked for Deseret Book.
I’ve always enjoyed browsing the different booths looking for good books that will be published in the coming year. I suppose I’m in the minority in that reguard, because the number of book publisher’s booths has dwindled significantly. When I walked the floor Thursday, I could hardly believe all the junk, trinkets, etc that are being marketed to LDS members. This year, especially, I felt like there was something very wrong going on. Most of the people at that convention had reduced the LDS faith to some kind of ware to be bought and sold in the persuit of money. Many publishers of serious works had disappeared completely from the floor (FARMS), and those publishers remaining had really watered down their offerings.
In the past, I’ve sort of justified to myself that merchandising to LDS people is all right because it helped bring good books to the church, but that isn’t happening as much anymore. Serious works aren’t selling like they used to (a subject for another post), so to stay in business publishers have to turn to the trashy feel-good ‘inspirational’ titles that have very little, if any, substance.
I seriously want to start my own little publishing house that would specialize in serious, doctrinally sound works. In wanting such a company, I would not join the ranks of the merchandising mormon, because it would be done on the side, and not be my primary income source. Also, books would be sold very close to cost, so the markups would be kept small. The key to making the whole thing work would be to use publishing technology such as print-on-demand to lower the cost of producing a book.
To start, I guess it would be prudent to offer some works that are in the public domain that haven’t been widely available for some time. I’ve got a number of ideas and I’m going to start today. I hold no illusions that my little effort will change the industry, or drive the money-changers from the temple, so to speak, but maybe I can help bring something of worth to my fellow saints that wouldn’t have been been available otherwises.
Posted in Religion | no comments | no trackbacks
