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Messages - gavino

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1
General / Town "Master Plan"...
« on: October 08, 2006, 11:59:14 AM »
My lefty town (Amherst, Massachusetts) is holding meetings to come up with a "Master Plan."

It seems like it might be a good opportunity to inject some free-market ideas, and I'm looking for suggestions on ideas that might actually have a chance at 'sticking.'  Anybody had success at getting local governments to become more pro-freedom?

Tiny bit of background:  Amherst is a college town (three universities in town, more students than residents).  Town government is still Town Meeting (which is wonderfully inefficient).  And voters are overwhelmingly left/liberal.


AMHERST - The public brainstorming sessions that will provide ideas for the comprehensive plan will start next Thursday, Oct. 12 at 7 p.m. and Oct. 14 at 10 a.m., both at the Regional Middle School.

Participants will be randomly assigned to a group of 10 to 12 people.

That's to avoid getting a bloc of people in the same idea-gathering session, which could make others feel uncomfortable about speaking up, said project manager Jennifer Lindbom.

The registration forms will provide the organizers with demographic information to determine whether participants represent a cross-section of the population.

The forms will also have a spot to indicate interest in specific areas such as land use, housing or transportation. These are intended to help the Comprehensive Planning Committee appoint members to the ''work groups,'' which will start meeting in November.

To start off, there will be a 15-minute introduction to the comprehensive planning process. Then the participants will separate into their groups, each of which will have a facilitator who has received training in the process.

The brainstorming comes first. Participants will have 10 minutes of quiet to write down responses to the question, ''What should be done to make Amherst the best that it can be in the coming years?''

The facilitator will then go around the room and ask each participant to voice one idea at a time. He or she will then write the idea, typically in five to 10 words, on a large sheet of paper taped to the wall. The facilitator will then go around the room again and repeat the process for a second idea.

No idea is too eccentric to be recorded. Lindbom said that in other towns ideas have included an ordinance against low-rise jeans that expose underwear, and a plea that all roads should be designed to be downhill to conserve fuel.

About halfway through the event, the small groups will do an exercise called ''Strong Places, Weak Places.''

The facilitator will point to a large map of Amherst on the wall and give each participant a smaller map. The idea is to locate on the map places that you like visiting or consider special or reflect well on the community. The weak places would be those that are eyesores or undesirable to visit.

Each participant will be given three green dots (for ''strong'' places) and three red dots (for ''weak'' places) and asked to stand up and put them on the large map on the wall. Then the facilitator will look for consensus and ask where the most green dots and red dots are grouped together.

The facilitator will ask participants to identify one or two reasons why a certain place is strong or weak, and will write them on the map.

Each participant will then receive a card with space for two recommendations ''for making the physical environment in Amherst the best that it can be in the coming years.''

The event will conclude with an anonymous questionnaire.

Public idea-gathering sessions will also take place Oct. 18 at 1 p.m. in the Jones Library and at 7 p.m. at Immanuel Lutheran Church and Oct. 20 at 9 a.m. in Franklin Patterson Hall, Amherst College.

QUOTE:

Everyone and every idea is welcome. Amherst planning project manager Jennifer Lindbom said that no idea is too eccentric to be recorded. She said ideas proposed in similar sessions in other towns have included an ordinance against low-rise jeans that expose underwear.


2
General / Fight censorship RIGHT NOW
« on: October 03, 2006, 11:02:04 AM »
The parents tv council is upset about the cable tv show "nip tuck", and is encouraging people to complain and urge their politicians to take action.

EVERYBODY:  Go here:
  http://capwiz.com/parentstv/issues/alert/?alertid=9069271

... and then replace the auto-generated "whine whine sex whine whine beastiality..." message with a pro-liberty message (ain't it great to use the enemies own weapons against them???).  Here's what I wrote:

Subject: Please protect our rights

Body:

The Parents Television Council wants to censor what I can watch on TV.

Please ignore them.  If I don't like what I or my children see on Cable TV, I can cancel my subscription or change the channel.

Personally, I use the V-chip and Tivo's brand-spanking-new "KidZone" features to keep my kids (4 and 6 years old) from watching inappropriate shows.  We do NOT need more legislation, parents already have all the tools we need.



3
General / What's wrong with the rainbow fish...
« on: August 14, 2006, 05:40:47 PM »
We've got the original rainbow fish.

What's your beef?  Nobody FORCED the rainbow fish to share it's sparkly scales, and the moral to the story is really "if you give shit away you don't really need people will like you and you'll feel good."

Completely compatible with libertarian philosophy, if you ask me.

4
General / Re: The cops don't think there are too many laws...
« on: July 17, 2006, 03:53:12 PM »
Keene, New Hampster?

You can actually get a list of the city laws here:
  http://www.municode.com/resources/gateway.asp?pid=13267&sid=29

The state laws here:
  http://www.nh.gov/government/laws.html

... and the federal laws here:
  http://uscode.house.gov/

If you start reading now, you should be done in... oh, I dunno, six months or so? (and I believe there are bunches of regulations that are controlled by bureaucrats empowered to tell you what you can and can't do...)

5
General / Re: The cops don't think there are too many laws...
« on: July 11, 2006, 10:26:28 PM »
Here's a good law:

"CHAPTER 89. LAW OF THE ROAD

Chapter 89: Section 3. Sleigh or sled; bells

Section 3. No person shall travel on a way with a sleigh or sled drawn by a horse, unless there are at least three bells attached to some part of the harness. "

(On the books in Massachusetts....)

6
General / The cops don't think there are too many laws...
« on: July 11, 2006, 07:51:09 PM »
Yesterday I finally took the time to walk into a police station and ask them if they could give me a list of the laws I'm supposed to obey.

My wife made me promise not to do it at the local police station-- when I told people what I planned to do, the universal reaction was "are you crazy?  Messing with the cops?  You're gonna wind up in jail...."

Anyway, I picked the police department for the next town over, and walked in around 3:00 Monday afternoon.  I'm buzzed into the lobby (security, I guess), and ask if there's somebody I could ask a few general questions about the police department and the criminal justice system.  I'm told a sargeant should be available in 10 or 15 minutes, so I get to wait.

While I'm waiting, three ladies come in to be fingerprinted (they work for a government agency).  And then two Jehova's Witnesses come in to drop of invitations to the huge meeting they'll be holding in a week (I wouldn't invite the cops to my party, but to each their own, I suppose).

Half an hour later the sargeant comes out, I tell him I'd like to ask him some questions, and he escorts me back to his office.

He didn't ask me to sit down, so the entire conversation took place with us both standing in his office, him with a buzz-cut and piston on his hip, me with just a piece of paper to take notes and a pencil:

Cops must be trained to immediately take control over the conversation, because I immediately feel like I'm being grilled; here's my recollection of about how the conversation went (I took some notes, but didnt' record the conversation).

"Who are you?"
  -- My name is Gavin.
"Who are you with?  Are you writing a newspaper article?"
  -- No, I'd just like to ask you a few questions for my own personal interest.
"What do you do?"
  -- I'm a computer programmer
"Are you thinking of becoming a police officer?"
 -- No
"Why are you interested in the police?"
 -- I'm interested in law; I'm thinking about maybe going to law school, and wanted to see how things worked from the police department's end

He seemed to like that answer.  It was even kinda-sorta true (I AM interested in the law, and there's a 1% chance I might decide to go to law school).

"So, what do you want to know?"

I know that ignorance of the law is no excuse for breaking a law, so I'm trying to educate myself about the laws.  I understand that there are town bylaws, state laws, and federal laws.  Do all police (state, local and federal) enforce all the laws, or do town police just enforce the town laws?

"No, we enforce all the laws against people and property, and all the motor vehicle laws.  Some of those laws we can arrest you for, some of them we can just issue you a citation."

Great, can you give me a list of all the laws that you can arrest me for?

"Umm...  no."

So I gotta know about town bylaws.  So are you saying that whenever I travel to a town I should read the town bylaws to make sure I don't accidently break any of them

"I know it's tough... you can go to City Hall in any city and they can give you a list of the town bylaws."

I'm a parent, so one of the laws that I just happened to look up is the state child car seat safety law.  Do you enforce that law?

"Yes, that's part of the motor vehicle code."

So that law states that children under age 5 or under 40 pounds must be in a child seat.  Do you keep a scale in your squad cars to weigh kids to see if they're under 40 pounds?

"(chuckles) no, no, we don't keep scales in the cars..."

So do I have to carry ID cards for my kids to prove that they're over 5?

"No, we just ask the parents what the kids date of birth is, and we can tell if they hesitate to do the math in their heads."

I asked if there were any laws that I was REQUIRED by law to report if I saw broken-- like, for example, Adultery is illegal, am I required to report it if my neighbor is having an affair?

"No. If you were a police officer or a doctor or a few other professions then there are certain things that you must report.  However, if you do see significant criminal activity we'd encourage you to report it."

I then asked him about drug laws, which led to a fairly lengthy conversation about some recent drug busts, him commenting that they see EVERYTHING, that they use helicopters to spot pot growing on private and public lands (apparently it's easy to see from the air because it's a unique shade of green and has shiny leaves).

I kept my liberty-lovin' views mostly to myself; I tried to get him to talk about his personal opinions, but he was definitely in Official Department Spokesperson mode.  I did also learn that they spend 40 hours a year in training to keep up with changes in the laws (24 at one of the state police academies, and 16 at the local department).

I asked if there were any laws he'd like to see passed, or any he'd like to see repealed:

"No, I think we have what we need to do our job.  Now, if I we had 15 million dollars more in the budget..."

---------

All in all, it was a much more pleasant experience than I anticipated-- mostly because I'm a pretty non-threatening, generic-looking white guy, and went in with a non-confrontational attitude.  I didn't demand answers to my questions, I just asked them, and didn't try to impose my views on him.

We're maggoty with police stations around here (three within walking distance of my house, another 4-5 in easy driving distance) so I'll probably repeat this sometime in the next few months-- and maybe next time I'll push a little harder, be a little more confrontational, and see what happens....

7
Does anybody besides me get real fidgety when Somalia is held up as a shining example of a Libertopia?

I haven't visited there.  Have absolutely no idea if it's hell on earth or the next Paradise.  But the Somalian Tourist Bureau will surely have a hard row to hoe.  Yeah, yeah, ok, sure, maybe it's just because the press decided that "War-Torn" would be the obligatory adjective they'd always insert before "Somalia".  And maybe Somalia is ten times better than any of it's neighbors-- so what, they're ALL still about 100 times worse off than we are here in the U.S.

It seems to me that freedom lovers are wriggling down further into a "nut-job" pigeon hole when they talk about Somalian anarchy as a good thing.


8
General / Re: FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 28, 2006, 04:47:28 PM »
Oh, yeah, and maybe a third issue:

3. It will get FTL into trouble with the Feds.

Well, Ian said it's a good idea (see the 'brainstorming' thread)... and I bet it would be great publicity for the show if the goverment goes after them for doing nothing besides hosting information on a completely open, free-to-anybody Wiki.   Seems like a pretty open&shut free speech case to me.

9
General / Re: FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 28, 2006, 04:45:03 PM »
I think there are two issues:

1. Is it OK to lie to the government?

Personally, I'm upset enough at the federal government that I enjoy lying to them.  And yup, that's unprincipled and immoral of me, because in general I believe that lying is bad and two wrongs don't make a right.

2. Are we shooting ourselves in the foot by making them waste more of our money?

This seems like a weak argument to me.  After all, if you go out on a protest march one could argue you're making the government spend more money (police, etc).  Certainly if you get arrested for protesting you're costing taxpayers money.  ANY effective protest will require the government to respond in some way-- costing money...

10
General / Re: FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 26, 2006, 03:51:16 PM »
The presiden't weekly radio address wouldn't work, the script only handles shows that happen monday-friday (it picks a random weekday in the last few days to fill in the date).

BUT:  There's nothing stopping you from manually filing a complaint.  Try this URL (anonymouse.org is a service that will hide youre IP address):

  http://anonymouse.org/cgi-bin/anon-www.cgi/https://www.parentstv.org/ptc/fcc/fcccomplaint2.asp


11
General / Re: FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 26, 2006, 03:04:06 PM »
could you get in trouble for filing a false complaint? 

Only if they catch you.  That's why I'd suggest using an unsecured wireless network and a laptop, or maybe a computer at a public library, to file complaints. But I think it's VERY unlikely that they would go to the trouble of subpoening your ISP's connection records to figure out who you are, unless you spam their server with tens or hundreds of complaints at one time.

There's a lot of work still to be done filling in the Wiki page with random complaint text, and filling in show information, so even if you don't want to risk filing a complaint you can help out by adding information to http://freetalklive.com/wiki/index.php?title=FCC_Monkey

12
General / Re: FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 25, 2006, 02:08:52 PM »
Good idea-- please enter some PBS stations and shows on the Wiki page.

Oh, and if you're running the script, every time you refresh the complaint form page it will grab a new, random set of data from the Wiki page.  So if you want to pick on PBS/NPR, poke refresh until a PBS/NPR station comes up...

13
General / FCC Monkey-Wrenching Project : Go!
« on: June 24, 2006, 10:19:38 PM »
I've finished the FCC Obscenity Complaint Form monkey-wrenching script!  See the instructions at:

http://freetalklive.com/wiki/index.php?title=FCC_Monkey

To make this effective, we volunteers to:

Add raw data to the wiki page.  Fill in more radio station and show data.  I think we especially need more complaint text (I dunno how many bureaucrats process the complaints, but if it's a small number they'll pretty quickly be able to recognize script-generated complaints).  It would be ESPECIALLY GOOD to find old "recommended complaint text" from the Parents TV Council and enter that into the system.

We also need people to run the script a couple few times a day.  The more the better.


14
General / Re: Monkey-wrenching the FCC complaint form...
« on: June 21, 2006, 02:01:44 PM »
"I saw BOOBS on PBS!!!!"

Ok, thumbnail sketch for the geeks on how I think I'm gonna implement this:

1. Write a GreaseMonkey script that will run when you visit the FCC (or Nazi TV Parents association) website, and will fill in their complaint form with random information.

2.  I think instead of using a real database for the "plausible stations", "plausible indecent incidents", etc, I'm thinking of using the FTL Wiki.  The GreaseMonkey script will fetch specially-formatted information from the Wiki pages to fill in the form (which pages to fetch the information from will be hard-coded into the GreaseMonkey script).

So, to monkey-wrench the FCC you'll have to:
  1. Run Firefox with the GreaseMonkey extension
  2. Install the monkeywrenching script.

Then, as often as you're willing:
  + Visit the FCC complain form page(s) (which will automatically fill out the form info), and poke the Submit button.
    BEST if you do this from a laptop connected to a public, open wireless connection so they can't trace your IP address.

To contribute to or change the database of bogus stuff to submit, you'd just add/edit the Wiki pages.

15
General / Re: Monkey-wrenching the FCC complaint form...
« on: June 20, 2006, 12:10:04 PM »
That's a good idea.  The censorship folks tend to have complaint forms on their websites, too.

Ooh, ooh, that's perfect-- one of the ways the FCC could fight is to throw out submissions from any IP address that generates a bunch of complaints in a small amount of time.  Maybe we can get the Parents Television Nazis' IP address banned.  At the very least, submitting both directly to the FCC and indirectly through censorship sites should let us double the number of complaints filed without risking getting IP-address banned...

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