A bleg.. for landfill solutions

As regarding this landfill problem we are faced with- does anyone know where some good information can be found on the web regarding large scale incineration of trash? My impression is that, while more expensive short-term, the long term benefits of not soiling our nests, and not having to constantly re-locate as they fill, should offset. But I'd like to know more.

Actually, I'd like our council to know more, too. Wooden shoe?

First Amendment groupies

I was going through my daily blog list when I came across a regular love-fest, Kumbayah and all, over at GF Teenview blog. Just below where he brags about the little girl dying in the van making it on Drudge, he has a little hoorah for flag burning and the New York Times.

Now I think he may be a decent kid, this Rick, but he just wasn't really thinking when he wrote the post on the little baby. I'm sure others read his wording and cringed, as I did. If a baby dying makes it to Drudge, how about not exalting in the national newsworthiness of it, OK kid? Some things are better not pointed out, alright? And speaking of not pointing things out, about that NY Times thing.....

The lovefest I witnessed was in the comment section, where Dave Miller, Tu Uyen Trang and this Rick kid are busy high-fiving each other over the fact that the NY Times "broke" a story that will now alert terrorists to take more care in their financial transactions, thereby further eluding justice.

Apparently you guys got your secret First Amendment goggles from the box tops you sent in, and now you can view your life and the entire world through them. That everything has to be weighed and judged by that one standard alone crowds out other worthy considerations, like the need to win a war by using tools available to us like the Swift program. Just like the other manufactured scandal about phone conversations, all this latest act of dubious reporting will do is frustrate those charged with winning the war on terrorism. This program, like the other, is completely legal, subject to screening and review by all three branches of the government. A little in-depth "research" would reveal that.

Given that, what's left to celebrate? Borderline treason? Aiding and abetting the enemy? Bush bashing? Go ahead. Doesn't do much for your credibility, in my eyes and those of others. What you come off looking like is a bunch of Woodward and Bernstein wannabes, looking to come up with the next big "-gate". Guess what? Ain't gonna happen. And you'll wear out your own righteous indignation and the public's patience trying. Bush isn't Nixon and Swift isn't Watergate.

In the eyes of the public, there's a line between reporting and partisan commentary. Live in one world or live in the other. Cross at your own peril. Does "Dan Rather" mean anything to you?

At the end of the day, you all need to realize that what you do is create a product for consumption by "customers". If that product is of good quality, well researched, and in the case of reporting, free of bias, it should sell well. If not, well, folks will look elsewhere. If in a fit of arrogance you refuse to accept that, you'll get a pass for a while, but it will eventually catch up to you. The market will not be denied. But what the hell do I know?

Not another gasoline e-mail !!!!

So I got another one of those "Don't buy gas for a week, we'll show those greedy gas companies! e-mails tonight. And from somebody who knows better (you know who you are). But don't worry- I still like you. Maybe you accidentally hit 'send' instead of 'delete' after you put everyone's name in the TO box. I'm just kidding, OK? I'm just kidding....anyway.. it was the one that compares high-priced eggs to gas and assumes that chickens just keep dropping eggs long past the time the demand is satisfied.

Truth is, you chop their heads off when they outlive their usefulness. But I digress. After telling how everyone bought fewer high-priced eggs, the story wraps up thusly:

"Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell. The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price. And the customers starting buying by the dozen again. Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry. What if everyone only bought $10.00 worth of gas each time they pulled to the pump. The dealers tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tank farms. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the Middle East. Just $10.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill it up. You may have to stop for gas twice a week but, the price should come down".

You of all people should have read this and said," But wait a minute, it is a pull market, not a push market". Your simple act of buying gas pulls the commodity through the system, thereby setting prices, not the other way around. Not a gallon of gas would move through a pipeline anywhere if someone at the other end wasn't demanding it.

Setting aside infrastructure cost considerations for the moment, let's see how the market works:

If a million gallons of gas are at the end of the pipeline and one consumer at the other end, the price of gas would be very very low- there is only the demand of one guy in a Subaru. He looks at the price on the pump and says, no, too much money. The owner of the station has bills to pay, and says, tell you what, how about this much? And the Subaru guy says, "Still too high. Look, I'm a decent kind of guy- I'll be fair, how about I give you 99 cents a gallon?" Gas station guy is sweating, but what's he gonna do? "Okay, sold."

Now picture the same million gallons are sitting there, and one hundred thousand consumers are at the other end. Now everybody only gets ten gallons. The guy in the Subaru is happy, he can go a long ways on that ten gallon allotment. But the guy in the Suburban needs thirty gallons to get somewhere and back. What does he do? He realizes that the market is at work! He offers to pay the gas station owner a little more per gallon, say two bucks, for the privelege of buying what he wants/ needs. If Mr. Subaru doesn't want to raise his bid, well, tough luck. No gas for him. By this effect, gas is "pulled" through the pipeline, and the price is determined. A million little decisions like this are made every day with commodities in a capitalistic system. Its what is called the invisible hand at work in economics. Now to address the concept of buying only what you need.

If we lay aside the impracticality of buying gas ten dollars at a time and focus on the end effect, we'd see that still nothing changes. The net effect of everybody buying gas ten dollars at a time would not change a thing on the market.At the end of the week, the same amount of gas would still have been sold, or "pulled" through. The market does not look at consumption in so narrow window of time as to be affected by this sort of action. What did you accomplish? Let's see:

In summation,you felt good doing it, but nothing substantive changed. In fact, you ran your tank low for too long and burned out your $500.00 fuel pump, and now have unintendedly made things worse for yourself. Congratulations! You now qualify as a liberal !

AND THE WINNER IS...

The winner of today's lyric competition is the line from Jethro Tull's "Skating Away":

"Skating away, on the thin ice of a new day..."

Watching the sun come up on this Monday morning, doesn't that just paint a picture in your mind?

Thank you Steven Pastis

Couldn't resist this from "Pearls Before Swine", one of my favorite comics at www.comics.com

Go Sioux Go Sue!

Dakota Huseby mentions the issue of the impending Fighting Sioux/ NCAA legal battle today in her blog. And I am happy to see she considers the NCAA's action to be hypocritical, as do I. She goes on to say that as an issue, this is not the most pressing thing we could be expending private and public funds, time, and energy on.

Well, yes, you could make that argument- there may be higher priorities. There's always a higher priority lurking in the bushes somewhere. But maybe settling this will allow us to get on to those higher priorities. To wit:

When it comes down to it, maybe it is time to hash this out in the liberal's favorite forum- the courts. Their second-favorite forum, the Herald Letters page isn't really working, is it? Public opinion isn't turning their way, either, as most people dismiss it as so much liberal claptrap. However, the seemingly never-ending dredging up of this issue does serve as a constant distraction to UND administration, the State Board of Education, and students interested in an education, and it takes away from more important issues in the context of Native American lives. High unemployment, alcoholism, tribal government corruption, retention of talent on the reservation, where to get good fry bread- these are far more pressing issues,and addressing the root causes of these should have a much higher priority than something like a nickname. Now the NCAA inserting itself in this issue accomplishes nothing, save poking a stick in the eye of UND's greatest benefactor's memory.

There seems to be no end of agitation amongst the guilt-ridden liberals who are constantly regurgitating grievances, and who seem to always be ready at a moment's notice to bring this issue back to life. Maybe its just never over for this group? I wonder about that sometimes, too. I made a comment some time back about the group that signed a letter protesting the Sioux name, and I'll say it again- If you people are so torn up inside, so incensed, so indignant over this issue of a school mascot name, then show us the true depth of your convictions:

Leave your posts right now, your tenured positions, everything, behind. Resign in protest of this horrible injustice, this cruel and abusive treatment of the gentle indigenous people that once roamed this land. Give all your possesions and money to the cause of changing the name Fighting Sioux. Show us you really mean it, that you are ready to spend yourselves in the cause of liberation. After all, what caring human being could bear to see their name yoked to a racist, oppresive institution like UND?

If you are unwilling to do this, if you are happy to only write an occasional letter to the editor when Mike Jacobs feels like reviving the issue, if talking amongst yourselves about this outrage salves your guilt-ridden liberal sensibilities, then what good are you? Apparently your station in life, comfort, and income, truly means more to you than you can bring yourself to admit. What oh what has become of you children of liberation, fighting against the systemic oppression of freedom? I'd guess probably you've grown fat, happy, gray, and spoiled by the system you enjoy railing against now.

That the legal bills for the pro-Sioux name side will be funded by private money tickles me no end. Here somebody is putting their money where their mouth is- a trait sadly lacking on the other side. Somebody who went to school and is proud to be part of the Fighting Sioux tradition. People who have gone out armed with their wits and a UND education and made something of themselves. Fight on, Sioux!

Disclaimer: The Good Ol' Boy did not attend UND. He is just tired of race hustlers in his back yard.

More Forum Flogging

Not to blog a dead horse (I had to say it), but more thoughts on Forum buying the GF Herald:

A letter to the editor published in today's Herald makes a good point- but not, I believe, the one the letter writer intended. Lois Wilde writes to say that the FCC should look at how the morning news is done on WDAZ. She points out that nothing on WDAZ in the morning has anything to do with Grand Forks or Devils Lake. I think her intention is to register her disapproval of the purchase of the Herald, but she unintendingly makes the case against it being an anti-trust issue.

As an early morning watcher of First News on Channel 8, I have always been slightly annoyed by the fact that the news we are given is almost totally Fargo-Moorhead oriented. Starting with the delivery of the news from Fargo studios, to the canned weather reports for us "Up North" by the Weather Elf, to the Fargo-centric news reports that start the day, one is left with the impression that not much happens up here that is worth devoting resources to reporting.

I guess outsourcing your news delivery makes budgetary sense, but it leaves the GF viewer with a feeling that we really aren't much of a "Home Team". Nothing unique here, I suppose, when I think about how WDAZ also supposedly has studios in Devils Lake- how much news reporting is generated out of there?

My point, and yes I am getting to it, is that with so much of the delivery of regional content- news, sports, weather, "outsourced" to Fargo, can we really consider WDAZ a Grand Forks media outlet in any meaningful sense anyway?

I can see it now, poorly lit, grainy video and all: "And now, your Home Team news, with Apu Sivadanggarrarojivitava and Jepo Bogadishnu. Storm Tracker Weather by Yastopol Spodblotnik."

Herald employees- be afraid, be very afraid......

Forum badges? We don't need no stinkin' Forum badges!

GF City beat has a little dustup between Tran and Milo Smith in the comments section that was kind of fun to read. I'm on the outside (WAY OUTSIDE) looking in on this matter, but the possibility of the two having to share resources seems remote to this hayseed.

As pointed out, the two media types work through different delivery systems to present information in very different ways. This would necessarily change much of how a story is processed and delivered. As a consumer of news, I look at both types of delivery, and I expect different things from each. Same with radio. The worst thing a media company could do would be to become intellectually inbred to the point of print and broadcast news pumping out the same party line. (*coughing sounds*Time*Warner*CNN*cough*cough*)

So if the Forum were to sponsor, say, maybe a tug o' war across the Red between WDAZ and the Herald, loser cleans the bathrooms for the other for a week, I think that would be cool. Maybe Milo Smith and Mike Jacobs can do some grain alcohol shots and arm wrestle beforehand to get the crowd going. I'm just throwing ideas out here.....

Red Light Bandits

Good Griefus- What is with people in this town? I cannot believe the way people flaunt the law at traffic lights. To ensure your own safety, you need to practice a three-second rule: After the green, wait three seconds to proceed. This gives those drivers a half a block away time to squeeze through. If you have your window rolled down, you can actually hear them floor it at the yellow.

I'm not just talking about little airheads driving their Cavaliers with one hand on the wheel and the other holding a cell phone to their ear, either. This is all kinds- semi drivers, people in company cars and trucks, pricks in Hummers, white trash in Delta 88s, you name it. And its everywhere- East side, GF, Gateway, Downtown. The only constituency that seems under-represented is soccer moms- I think maybe they are at least concerned about safety enough to follow common sense about what a yellow light means.

I can hear it now- "W-eh-eh-eh-hellllll..... Mr. Good Ol' Boy. You are such a freakin' hick- you come from a place that only had one stoplight in the whole town. You don't understand that I am in a hurry to get to my job that I hate. Or that I can't stop this Escalade from 30 MPH in only half a block when the yellow comes on. Besides, if it turns red when I'm in the intersection that's a freebie..." To that I say B.S. I may be a hick, but you are NOT in that big a hurry and you CAN stop that Blingmobile and NO you and three others went through after my light turned green.

I would dearly love to see our Police Depts on both sides of the river clamp down on this for a month or two. That would help for, oh, say, six months or so. But that's better than nothing, and better than what we see happening now. How about it guys? Is it do-able?

Another question I have about this- if something terrible did happen in an intersection because of some fool running a red light, it can't even be called an accident, can it? Accidents are unplanned, and running a red light is a deliberate act. What could a good lawyer do with that? Anybody know?

Zarqawi- May he rot in hell

Not much to add to THAT thought-

No matter what you may think of our war on terrorism- for it or agin' it- you have to admit killing this animal was a good thing. We can debate endlessly on what effect it may have on the outcome of events, and I'm sure we will, but for now, let's give our military a big thumbs up for a job well done.

They'll report- We'll decide?

The GF Herald in an editorial today, announces it will no longer endorse candidates in elections. While it remains to be seen how that will ultimately work out, I certainly applaud the change. If indeed there is more space given to coverage of candidates' views and intentions, versus editorial pontifications, I say Hoo-Rah!

I can't help but notice (cue music from Twilight Zone) that this is eerily parallel to Fox News' stated policy. Despised though it may be, this apparently is working for Fox News, at CNN's expense, among others. I would love to see this happen at my hometown newspaper. I resent being told what to think, whether outright in an editorial, or in a subtle fashion, through carefully considered keywords and phrases.

As long as I'm damning with faint praise here, might I make a suggestion? Why don't the employees of the Herald buy the paper? Nothing cures a socialist bent like being self-employed. It worked on me all those years ago, I can tell you that. I'm just saying.....