Such is the common response to new users posting frequently-asked and answered questions on Internet forums, but in this case I’m referring to myself: the previous post is the second time I’ve used “death, taxes and stupid” in a post headline. I thought it sounded familiar, and when I used the “Search” feature, there it was.
It’s been over six years since that posting, so maybe I can be excused for not remembering.
As if the California government hasn’t done enough to increase misery and suffering through tax increases and budget cuts, last week they took the initiative to do it in a more direct fashion. The state Senate approved SB 484, a bill that once signed into law would make pseudoephedrine, the only truly effective decongestant component of cold medications, available only as a prescription medication.
The motivation as most people already understand is that pseudoephedrine is a key ingredient in the illegal manufacture of methamphetamines, so measures reducing its availability may discourage people who can’t easily obtain it from making their own drugs.
What many people don’t know about is that pseudoephedrine’s over-the-counter replacement, phenylephrine, simply is not effective taken as a pill or syrup which is how it’s most often packaged. Have you noticed your cold medication hasn’t worked worth a damn lately? Take a close look at the active ingredients list; most drug makers have quietly substituted phenylephrine for pseudoephedrine in their cold remedies.
Moreover, what the law’s proponents have so far overlooked is that addicts and the criminal elements who supply them are highly motivated. Making prescription-only a medication that would remain available over the counter in other states, not to mention more readily and cheaply from, say, Mexico, would have negligible impact on methamphetamine addiction. What the proposed law might instead do is shift the manufacture of meth to areas where pseudoephedrine is more easily obtained like, say, Mexico. (As if the Mexican drug gangs needed any more business and by extension, money and power…)
What the proposed law will certainly do is make effective cold symptom remedies more expensive and less accessible to law-abiding citizens, thereby generally increasing the level of suffering (since the common cold isn’t going away anytime soon)… One might plausibly speculate that there would also be some economic impact due to reduced productivity, with more workers immobilized at any given time by cold symptoms.
The bill is currently before the state assembly; Californians, contact your Assemblymember and let them know that this proposed law is a bad idea that needs to be nipped in the bud.
In the meantime, I’ll be stocking up on pseudoephedrine, just in case the law passes and forces cold-relief-seeking citizens to become drug smugglers.
A couple weeks ago the San Francisco Region of the Sports Car Club of America (SFR-SCCA) put my Spec Miata race car on display at the Silicon Valley International Auto Show in San Jose.
The first challenge was getting the car there. The San Jose convention center where the show was held was only a couple miles from my shop where the car is stored, but the car hasn’t been registered for road use in over a year. A couple days before the move I went to the DMV to try to get a temporary moving permit, but unbeknownst to me starting this year the rules for issuing these have tightened, and I wasn’t able to get a permit. That wasn’t a big deal, as towing the car was always an option, but spending 30-45 minutes for loading/unloading, not to mention driving an unwieldy tow rig around downtown SJ, seemed a bit silly for moving an otherwise road-worthy car a couple miles.
Once at the convention center, getting the car inside was interesting, involving taking a shortcut driving over the sidewalk to get into the parking garage without driving the car on public streets, and then through a set of double doors onto the main floor. Regrettably our display was on the first floor so I didn’t have the chance to drive the car in and out of the freight elevator.
Contrary to what television shows would have you believe, driving a car indoors isn’t very much fun. Or rather, driving a race car with a solid-hub puck clutch at walking pace indoors isn’t very much fun. The race car clutch doesn’t like to be eased in—trying to do so would stall the engine—so I had to “launch” the car as gently as I could into first gear, then immediately clutch in and let it coast at a walking pace for a short distance, and repeat; not unlike driving in bumper-to-bumper traffic, but just a bit slower.
Logistics aside, having the car on display was a fun time. I set up a looping playback of race videos from last season which, as moving video always does, turned a few heads and caught some attention. Whenever I could I would let people—kids mostly but also a few folks interested in getting into racing themselves—get into the car and have their photos taken. I enjoyed talking to the general public about the SCCA’s motorsports activities and also about my particular experiences; it was nice to have a fresh set of ears to hear my stories.
As an upshot, in preparation for the show I cleaned the car thoroughly inside and out, and kept the outside clean and shiny with generous amounts of detailing spray. The car is probably cleaner than it’s ever been.
In my relatively short time here on Earth there have been a few events that may in the long run punctuate the history of our civilization… but I’ll be darned if I was actually able to witness any of them, by live broadcast if not in person.
Case and point: The Challenger accident occurred while I was in class, and as I was in Canada we weren’t tuned in to the event as apparently many American schools were. The September 11 attacks had all taken place by the time I woke up.
The bulk of western civilization, it seems, lies in a span of time zones that seemingly increases the probability of noteworthy events happening while I, here in Pacific Time, am in bed asleep. As a matter of practice, one of the first things I do after waking up in the morning is checking the news on the BBC, CBC and CNN web sites, as a quick check that the world hasn’t changed in some drastic way in the previous few hours.
Of course there are plenty of other events that have occurred while I was fully aware, but they tend not to be singular moments. The 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami may have been (to a degree) a pinpoint in time, but its far-reaching effects took some time to become known. The fall of the Berlin Wall may be considered an “event” but it didn’t occur all at once, certainly not in the literal sense.
Only time will really tell how “monumental” tomorrow’s inauguration will be… But at least this time I might wake up on time to see it, if my alarm clock doesn’t fail me.
With our parents fully informed I’m finally able to lift the news embargo: Janice and I got engaged on Thanksgiving Day this past November.
Happy New Year everybody.
We got more winter rains this week, and of course, this being California, it meant that people started crashing left and right again. Every time it rains I get a bit of perverse satisfaction from watching SigAlert light up like a Christmas tree as people demonstrate their ineptitude at keeping their vehicles under control. California drivers suck and rain acts has something of a bottleneck effect: it takes a fraction of the worst drivers off the road, albeit temporarily in most cases.
This week it got cold enough that at modestly higher altitudes snow fell, and as SigAlert showed (excerpt of screenshot shown to the right), even snowplow drivers haven’t got a clue how to drive.
I’ve enabled account-less comments. That is, users without accounts—pretty much everybody out there, assuming there are any of you—should be able to leave comments. Assuming you can get by the spam filter, anyway.
I finally got on Twitter. Mostly it just reflects my Facebook status… but I do appreciate the fact that it does exactly one thing—no photos, videos, games, stupid time-wasting apps, etc. Let’s hope it stays that way.
Check out my “tweets” here: http://twitter.com/vtluu
Like many people I try to remember to pick up a few non-perishable food items to drop into the food bank donation bin on my way out of the supermarket, especially ’round this time of year. Upon further reflection it occurred to me that such an act, while commendable, is a bit of a symbolic gesture. Sure, if everybody gave a few items of food, then the amount collected might be enough, but of course not everybody does, and in reality not everybody could, if only because it would overwhelm the food bank’s logistical capabilities: a mountain of randomly-donated food would take far too much effort and expense to sort and transport.
That got me thinking about efficiency and scale. The amount I donate to some other charities would buy a pallet or more of food at wholesale prices. Nobody collects cans of soup and boxes of cereal to send to the hungry in impoverished nations across the globe, because as they’ve long ago figured out, it would be monumentally inefficient. Instead, people donate money, which can be collected and moved with very little overhead cost, and the money gets used to purchase food in bulk in a way that it can be quickly and cost-effectively delivered to those who need it. So what makes us think that dropping cans into a bin on the way out of the grocery store is a good idea?
Maybe it’s a sense of directness: we may find it emotionally rewarding to think that an item of food has gone from our hands into those of a needy family. It’s the next best thing to volunteering at a food bank or soup kitchen and feeding people directly, which many of us are unable or—let’s face it—unwilling to do. Rationally speaking, however, there’s no arguing with the fact that money talks.
'Fake' shopping list from Second Harvest of Santa Clara's Virtual Food Drive website
To that end I decided that rather than trying to remember to get food for the donation bin, I’d donate money directly to the food bank. Sure, throwing money may be the “easy” way out, but in this case it’s easiest for me and easiest for the food bank and ultimately for the people it serves, so everybody comes out on the winning end… Except maybe the supermarket, who’s lost a few pennies’ worth of profit on the items that I didn’t buy for the donation bin.
My local food bank—Second Harvest of Santa Clara—has a “virtual food drive” site set up to receive online monetary donations. The “Virtual Food Drive” shopping page is fake—you don’t really choose what items to donate, your money just goes into a pool that’s used to purchase needed items, which makes much more sense anyway—and some of the “Our Price” vs. “Retail Price” numbers are a bit dubious, but nevertheless the economies of scale and the above arguments still apply. Wherever you are, find your local food bank and contribute however you can—it’s that much more important in these tough times.
Today is Veterans Day here in the United States; in Canada and many other countries it’s Remembrance Day, a name I think more fitting to mark the somber occasion that the day represents: a commemoration of the hard work of and sacrifices made by military men and women in wars and conflicts past and present. Moreover it’s an occasion to reflect upon the price we as a society—not to mention the personal cost borne by families and individuals—have paid and continue to pay for the freedoms and liberties that we hold so dear.
Therefore I was rather taken aback when I saw an ad on television promoting Macy’s “Veterans Day Sale”. While I would never argue against their right to hold a sale for any reason that they want, to reduce the name of the day to an excuse to discount prices on goods and sell more merchandise seems a bit tasteless to say the least. Could they cast a more appallingly banal light upon what’s supposed to be a somber, meaningful occasion?
Freedom is not free, and it can’t be purchased at your stores, Macy’s. Shame on you!