Sheesh! I have a SmartPhone and it's loaded with apps. One of them is a shopping-list app provided by Publix, the grocery concern that effectively owns Florida. I tried to get on that app a day or so ago and it demanded my password — which I, of course, could not remember. Naturally, I poked the "forgot my password" button and got a quick email response from Publix.
The email directed me (via a hyperlink, thank heaven) to a website where I could reset my password, and that's when I noticed it.
My new password must be, according to the instructions there, between 8 and 28 characters long, composed of lower-case letters, upper-case letters, numbers, and a collection of special symbols (pick two or more).
Really? I need a complex, hard-to-remember password for my shopping list? Why? Is Publix afraid someone is going to steal it? Perhaps there is some danger that an unauthorized person will go on a shopping spree with my list. Hell, they might even reset my "favorite Publix" to one that I wouldn't ordinarily have chosen. Horrors! Alert the NSA.
In truth, Publix should welcome anyone spending money at any of their locations. That's why that app is FREE to download and use. It's the same reason Publix publishes coupons in the newspaper and welcomes their use — by anybody. So why is my shopping list so secure?
Trying my best to be fair, I called Publix' Customer Relations office and posed the question to them. Their answer was that, as unimportant as my shopping list might be, there are other datapoints that are associated with the account — my email address, family names, etc. — that I probably wouldn't want compromised. Fair enough...
But whose decision is that? Is it Publix' job to see to it that my data is safe — or is it my job?
"The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools." —— Herbert Spencer
Just back from a 1400-mile trip to Winchester VA (and return) with an observation about American drivers.
Most of them should have their licenses suspended.
What ever happened to "slower traffic keep right"? Whatever happened to "don't block an intersection"? Whatever happened to common courtesy?
The problem here, of course, is that "being stupid" is not a moving violation. My favorite "stupid" is what my friend, Nick, calls "the rolling roadblock": two (or more) cars abreast all at the same speed. Yes, they're traveling at the speed limit so, technically speaking, nobody is "faster traffic" and therefore nobody is "slower traffic", either. Regardless, the left lane is putatively for "passing traffic", and a vehicle not passing shouldn't be there. Even if they do exceed the other cars' velocity by 0.0004 mph.
Analogous to that is the practice by some semi drivers. (They drive semi's; they're not partially drivers... Wait, let me think about that some more.) Picture a line of semi's in the right lane. Suddenly, one of them pulls out as if to pass. Twenty minutes later, the truck pulls back into the right lane having passed all three of the trucks blocking its path. Behind it in the left lane is a line of cars a mile long.
There is a solution to both these odious practices. Digital technology makes it not only possible, but cheap: You want to use the Interstates? Okay, you have to have one of these "left lane usage indicator"s (LLUI or "Louie") affixed to the back of your car. It's a huge illuminated stopwatch display and it has a repeater on your dashboard. It detects that you've moved into the left lane and starts a timer. If you leave the left lane before 45 seconds have elapsed, the timer resets to zero; otherwise, the display turns from yellow to red and continues counting up. If you leave the left lane before 90 seconds, the timer resets to zero; otherwise, the timer continues counting up, and only stops counting up when you leave the left lane; it does not reset to zero. A stopped red timer is an automatic ticket for "obstructing traffic" when any patrolling trooper spots it.
No Louie on your trunk? Stay off the Interstate because it's an automatic "obstruction" ticket to cruise without your Louie.
But wait! What if there's a HUGE line of traffic? Maybe I can't pass them all without going like... 120mph? If I get a ticket for 120-in-a-70, I'll have to sell my house to pay the ticket! Relax! There's no speed limit in the left lane. Just don't pull out in front of something that is obviously gaining on you.
Of course, there is another solution that doesn't require any sort of technology.
If we take all the speed limits off all the Interstates, Ma and Pa Kettle will no longer be able to squat in the left lane "doing the limit" because there won't be any limit. Some of those drivers may just decide to not travel by Interstate. They'll tell you it's because there are so many crazy drivers going at crazy speeds, but the real reason will be that they would much rather travel on highways that accommodate their skill level.
Yes, there will be accidents, but after the first few weeks I believe the accident rate will begin to look like what Germany's Autobahn experiences. This has, in fact, happened. In 1994 when Congress dropped '55' as the National Maximum Speed Limit, Montana changed its Interstate speed limit to 'Reasonable & Prudent', and in their first nine months of R&P they saw a 28% decline in highway fatalities. The crashes they did have were in almost all cases spectacular. No one should be surprised that two cars closing at 250mph will leave no survivors, but the frequency of those crashes was so low that the overall fatality rate plummeted.
How did this happen? There were two reasons: the first reason was that, with no numerical speed limit, drivers could no longer feel justified about monopolizing the left lane; they moved right to cede the leftmost lanes to faster traffic. Civil engineers call this "lane discipline". The second reason harks back to my second paragraph: drivers whose skill level was not appropriate to an Interstate highway abandoned the Interstates for secondary roads with speed limits their skills could handle.
I'm trying to find the down-side to this but can't.
The Interstates should be America's Autobahn.
I listened to the music of Peter, Paul, and Mary for 35 years before I began to understand what they were singing about.
NO EASY WALK TO FREEDOM
Peter Yarrow and Margery Tabankin
©1986 Silver Dawn Music (ASCAP)
Oh, bread for the body, there's got to be
But a soul will die without liberty
Pray for the day when the struggle is past!
Freedom for all! Free at last! Free at last!
chorus:
No easy walk to freedom,
No easy walk to freedom,
Keep on walkin' and we shall be free
That's how we're gonna make history
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires. -- Nelson Mandela
Conservatives and liberals think of themselves as holding principled positions and I don't dispute that — although their principles are not easily put into words and thus, with no firm or formal basis, no Ten Commandments, the application of those principles takes on a distinctly squishy appearance. Republicans and Democrats are party-people; they're content to be led by the party leadership (presumably chosen by the led in some mutually agreed format) and their principles (to the extent they can be said to have any at all) are enshrined in the party platform, principally focused on winning the next election, and subject to change at the whim of the convention. The same may be true of Greens, Reformists, Socialist Workers, and others; I don't know enough about them to hold an informed opinion.
Libertarians differ from all of these in a special way. We've all had to fight our way to this point, and for many the journey has, indeed, been no easy walk to freedom. Our single principle, that which defines us, is what L. Neil Smith calls 'the Zero Aggression Principle' (ZAP):
A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being for any reason whatever; nor will a libertarian advocate the initiation of force, or delegate it to anyone else.Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim.
I've often said that nobody becomes a libertarian overnight. There is always some resistance to ZAP simply because our whole life has been lived under a regime of 'do this or else...'. It is difficult under the best of circumstances to envision a world where 'or else' does not involve somebody doing something unpleasant. There is no 'Eureka!' moment when it all suddenly becomes clear. Almost always it's a process that takes years rather than months. Consequently, there will always be in any gathering of libertarian-minded folk some who are further along down that road and others who haven't quite made it as far. This is a constant source of conflict as those far-advanced berate the rear guard for not being as ideologically pure as they ought to be.
This has to stop. Anyone who has started their walk to freedom must be welcomed as a real 'fellow-traveler' (the Communists got that right) and be encouraged rather than harassed. Those who haven't started their journey: conservatives, liberals, and other party-people; must be won over, but that, also, will be no easy walk. Too many of them think of freedom as a tool with which to fashion the ultimate prize: a new world. They seek power in the unsupported-by-experience belief that power in their hands can deliver freedom; it can, but it will not.
We own their hearts when they begin to understand that freedom is the prize, that it cannot be imposed, and that any polity awash in freedom will need no further fashioning. The truth of this is not intuitively obvious. All those non-libertarians, alas, will each have to make their walk to freedom on their own, and the only thing libertarians can do for them is to stand at the forks in the road as guides.
"Freedom this way. Watch your step. It's no easy walk."
For those of you who do not follow Mike Vanderboegh's Sipsey Street Irregulars blog, there are big doings in Connecticut, the Constitution State.
Last April, in response to the prior December's horrendous shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, the Connecticut legislature passed a knee-jerk law requiring all "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines" to be registered with the state by the start of 2014. (I put "assault weapons" and "high capacity magazines" in quotes to emphasize that these are phoney-baloney made up terms used merely to demonize equipment in wide and lawful use by very many upstanding citizens throughout the country.)
When passed, those in the know in CT estimated upwards of 370,000 assault weapons and as many as four million (4,000,000) magazines were then in the hands of an unknown number of Nutmeggers. Well, the deadline for registering all that nasty equipment has passed and fewer than 50,000 rifles and fewer than 40,000 magazines have been registered. That is, <15% of the guns and <1% of the magazines. Yes, ONE percent.
It gets worse. Pro-gun organizations in CT as well as elsewhere have bluntly stated their resolve to touch off another revolution if the state tries to confiscate any of the unregistered firearms. Given the realities on the ground, the Connecticut State Police have the upper hand only for the first one or two such confiscations, after which an all-out war is not outside the envelope of possibility. CT legislators have had their home addresses posted online and reacted by demanding personal state-paid security details to forestall assassination attempts.
Connecticut Carry, one such organization promoting concealed- and open-carry for CT, issued a press release giving the legislature until May 7th to repeal the intolerable act saying "shit or get off the pot" (yes, that is a quote from the presser) meaning "repeal or enforce, take your pick".
Stay tuned. This could get interesting.
Posts
All Comments
