Odds and ends number 39

As always, these are my short takes on a number of subjects.

Let’s begin with something the nanny state of Maryland has already addressed, banning hand-held cel phones or texting while driving. Now the National Transportation Safety Board wants to take this ban nationwide, never mind there are already laws in every state against inattentive driving.

I do quite a bit of driving as part of my job and I have to tell you that there are a lot of drivers out there who are on their cel phone – some may be hands-free and others are holding on to theirs. But aside from the fact they may have one or both hands on the steering wheel, I don’t think they’re any more distracted than someone who’s eating their lunch on the run, adjusting their heater or the radio, or yelling at the kids. Should we ban all those activities as well? Trust me, if I were an undercover cop I could rack up a lot of fines for the state by picking up folks who I saw talking on the phone, and could probably find a few scofflaws texting as well.

We don’t need a national texting ban – just a little more common sense.

Speaking of common sense, I think there’s another area where we’re lacking. The internet is great because of its freedom, but there are those who want to enact Chinese-style internet censorship because they’re worried about copyright infringement. This site pokes fun at the idea.

But this could be a serious problem for a blogger like me, because I have my occasional Friday Night Videos series and some of these artists cover songs by other artists. Obviously that’s not a significant portion of my content and I don’t think I’m going to cost any of these original artists any money. But in theory I could run afoul of the law, and that’s completely ridiculous. It’s amazing the excuses people can come up with to dampen the internet, because copyright infringement is only the beginning – next will be restricting what one can say. Constitution? We don’t need no stinkin’ Constitution.

Finally, speaking of the internet, this was an interesting e-mail.

I just received a spam message from a candidate you did an article on.  It is a nice Christmas message, and below is says I am on their “Supporters list. ”

I, however, am not on the list.  I actually don’t even know who this guy is.  Furthermore, I have never been to Maryland.  I have never voted in a US election.  I am actually Canadian.

And I hate spam like cats hate water.  And I find it reprehensible that someone running for senate would be spamming – which here is against the law.  I believe it is down there too.

Should I be invited though, I would be happy to make a trip down there and give you guys an honest opinion of the candidates you have running for senate.  Please forward this appropriately if need be.

Well I appreciate the readership from north of the border, but it brings up a great point about e-mail address harvesting.

I have no idea just how many e-mail lists I’m on, and there’s a reason I tried to avoid placing any of my work e-mails on e-mail lists – to avoid situations like this person’s.

Still, I’d be curious to know how the e-mail got on the list – probably a typo, judging by the fact it’s a fairly common Gmail address – and what this person really thinks about our Senate candidates.

The best irony, though, is that Eric Wargotz isn’t even running this year but he’s now known in a far-flung place like Regina, Saskatchewan. And now so am I.

Update: There was one more item I meant to throw in. People like to rag on Walmart and those who frequent it, but this writer – presumably one who won’t be part of the 99% since she’s working her way through college – brings up a great point about the need for welfare reform, to wit:

I spent hours upon hours toiling away at a register, scanning, bagging, and dealing with questionable clientele. These were all expected parts of the job, and I was okay with it. What I didn’t expect to be part of my job at Wal-Mart was to witness massive amounts of welfare fraud and abuse.

Read the rest. It’s going to be interesting to see what Maine does with their system since the Republicans were swept into power last year – of course, having said that, one has to consider that what passes for Republican in Maine are RINOs like Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins.