i'm outraged.

three warnings and one ticket in four days. outrageous. i'm outraged. the worst part? my car wasn't even moving. the first one was for no front tags on the supra, parked on a county street. i was not parked at a yellow curb, or in a handicapped space or in front a fire hydrant. no. my car sat there, next to the curb, not moving, properly registered, but lacking the front license plate. the three warnings i received when i stopped at the gate to show my badge and one of the gate guards was bored and decided to write me up for the clear plastic front license plate cover on the corolla. i was given a warning for that, a warning for failure to provide proof of insurance (i couldn't find my insurance card) and a warning for operating an uninsured vehicle, even though my vehicle is in fact insured, indeed probably over-insured.

did i break the law? yes, i did. and according to the law, i deserved those tickets/warnings. but who did i hurt? did i endanger someone? did i endanger myself? were the other people on the block where my car was parked somehow put as risk because my car did not have a front license plate or other people on the road at risk because my other car had a clear piece of plastic over it's front license plate? were my actions to the detriment of society at large? of course not.

the real risk here is the local governments running out of money and so they write stupid little laws like this with stupid little fines to pad their budgets. but here's the best part... have you ever wondered why you are required to have front tags? (hint: cops don't chase you from the front) it's for things like photo radars* and red light cameras** and laser speed traps***, other laws that generate revenue. so now we have laws specifically designed to ensure that other laws revenue generating laws continue to put money in the county coffers.

you're probably thinking, dan is an idiot and he gets what he deserves. he should just do like he's supposed to and no one will bother him. if you're thinking that, you've missed the entire point and i have failed as a writer. the point is 1) i shouldn't be forbidden from doing anything that doesn't hurt anyone and 2) the government should not be writing laws for the purposes of collecting money unless they are tax laws and even that is questionable if you ask me.

* i think we can pretty much all agree that photo radars do not improve traffic safety. after about a month, everyone knows exactly where they are and will slow down for just long enough to not get a ticket. furthermore, anyone who *does* get a ticket gets it 2-4 weeks after the fact which means 1) they did not slow the time they got the ticket and 2) now they know exactly where it is so they can slow down just long enough next time to not get a ticket

** red light cameras are still debatable. while they have been shown to decrease the number of cars running the light as it turns from green to red, they have also been show to increase the number of rear-end collisions at the same intersections. so you decide if you'd rather get hit by the car behind you or have to wait while some jerk squeeze through the light at the last second.

*** i've got no good argument against speed traps. and in fact, they probably would improve traffic safety in the long run if the fines were so substantial that it actually changed peoples driving habits.

fda impotent, needs viagra

i was going to ramble on about the state lawmaker from west virginia who has proposed a bill to ban barbie dolls on the premise that "the Barbie doll, I think, gives emphasis on if you're beautiful, you don't have to be smart", but decided that the topic was already absurd enough and didn't need any ridicule from me. instead, i will ramble about the recent supreme court ruling regarding regulatory pre-emption.

the facts of the case (from what i understand) are this:

• wyeth, a pharmaceutical company, created a drug (called phenergan) for treating migranes. the drug and drug warning label were approved by the FDA.
• a certain method for administering the drug carries a risk of gangreen, and there was no warning about this on the FDA approved warning label.
• a woman had to have her arm amputed as a result of being treated via the method described above and sued wyeth.
• wyeth claimed that since the fda approved the warning label, they could not be held responsbile and the the fda's approval essentially immunized wyeth from lawsuits.
• the supreme court ruled that "that Phenergan's label did not contain an adequate warning about the IV-push method of administration" and that wyeth's defense did not hold. the woman was awarded $6.7M.

now, while i don't disagree that if wyeth knew about this risk, they undoubtedly, should have included this on the warning label, it does make me wonder what the hell is the point of the FDA approval process?

the whole purpose of regulatory bodies like the FDA is to assure some degree of quality & safety to the general public. these agencies exist because it is generally believed that it's not possible for an average consumer understand all the risks they are faced with (and is a topic worthy of it's own rant), be it with respect to automotive safety, the grade of your beef, prescription drugs, or toy dolls that send the wrong message. there are probably hundreds of the agencies; FDA, USDA, NHTSA, SEC, FTC, CPSC and on and on...

the supreme court effectively ruled that FDA approved warning labels do not sufficiently divulge the risks inherent with the use of some drugs. this inevitably leads to the question, if the FDA approves insufficient warnings, how can i trust them? if i can't trust them, then why do they exist? the supreme court essentially rendered the FDA impotent, and have possibly set the same precedent for all regulatory agencies.

without getting into an argument about whether the fda should or should not exist, they should be held responsible in cases like this. if the FDA knew about this risk and approved the label without a proper warning and had the legal authority to force wyeth to include it, the FDA is equally responsible.

eff fees

nothing drives me nuts like extra fees (actually lots of things drive me nuts, but the topic of my blog today and this book is fees). baggage fees, local number portability fees, fuel surcharges, etc., etc. basically all these fees are normal costs of doing business which companies like to pretend are add-ons or some extraordinary cost that they should not have to pay for. why don't they just add this into the price of the service you are paying for? because this way they can advertise a lower price and then make it up by tacking on fees.

today, outraged by the fact that i had to pay a fee to pay my stupid living in arlington fee (personal property tax) by credit card, i sent an email to mastercard and called the arlington comissioner of revenue to let them know they were in violation of their merchant agreement. if you didn't know, it's against the mastercard (and i presume visa) merchant agreements for a merchant who accepts credit cards to charge a fee to the customer for using them. this is essentially why you don't see gas stations (or shouldn't) that have different credit and cash prices anymore. it says so right here in paragraph 5.9.2. it states:

5.9.2 Charges to Cardholders A Merchant must not directly or indirectly require any Cardholder to pay a surcharge or any part of any Merchant discount or any contemporaneous finance charge in connection with a Transaction. A Merchant may provide a discount to its customers for cash payments. A Merchant is permitted to charge a fee (such as a bona fide commission, postage, expedited service or convenience fees, and the like) if the fee is imposed on all like transactions regardless of the form of payment used, or as the Corporation has expressly permitted in writing. For purposes of this Rule: A surcharge is any fee charged in connection with a Transaction that is not charged if another payment method is used. The Merchant discount fee is any fee a Merchant pays to an Acquirer so that the Acquirer will acquire the Transactions of the Merchant

there are a few possible outcomes to the ball i have set rolling:

1. nothing
2. the extra fees are removed
   
3. the extra fees are removed and everyone's property tax bill in arlington goes up by $3 next year to cover the costs of removing the fees (sorry guys)

also, for the record, the $10 minimum charge at your favorite chinese carryout place is also a violation of their merchant agreement. though i'm not so upset about these because they are typically mom and pop type places and i don't mind and i pretty much always get at least $10 worth of food anyway.

5.9.3 Minimum/Maximum Transaction Amount Prohibited A Merchant must not require, or indicate that it requires, a minimum or maximum Transaction amount to accept a valid and properly presented Card.

why the government moves at the speed of molasses

if you've ever wondered why the government can't get anything done, based on my recent experience, i would tell you it most likely has something to do with IA. or "information assurance" for all you non DoD folks. our information is assured by people who call themselves information assurance officers, and whose primary job, as far as i can tell is to say "no". they have created a maze of paperwork so confusing that no mere mortal could possibly get their software approved to run on a government network. in fact, we were told that our best bet would be to hire a contractor whose sole purpose would be to do the accrediation paperwork for us and it could take years. to make things worse, there are least six "different" networks that each require separate approval. i say "different" because in reality, most of them are all connected, they are just different nodes, managed by different services.

as if that's not bad enough, commercial applications are WAY easier to get on the network than our own government sponsored, government owned, government developed software. microsoft office? no problem. google earth? no problem. government software? you have to fill out an approximately 54,437 page security document on which half the questions are irrelevant, half don't make any sense, and the other half yields answers whose usefulness with regards to security is questionable at best.

how did i find all this out? after i flew to hawaii to support a mission and spent a week and half just trying to get my damn computer plugged in. anyway, long story short, i got to do some hiking and snorkelling while i was out there. thanks uncle sam!

trucknutz. tacky? yes. illegal? also yes.

what are trucknutz? they are exactly what they sound like. they are testicles for your truck, now available in camouflage. who puts these things on their trucks? pretty much exactly who you'd expect. oh, and a state senator from florida whose wife recently made him remove them from his, as he put it, "pimped out" truck. of course, if his wife hadn't made them remove him, the local morality enforcement division police department would have. just the other day florida passed legislation banning what state senator jim king described as "an expression of truckliness". to be honest, i'm torn about whether this guy should be in office or not.

my thoughts? how kind of you to ask. i understand some people might find these things offensive, but unfortunately, offending people is one of the costs of free speech. i know it's a reach (around?) to call trucknutz free speech and that argument gets used probably way more often than it should, but you can't just go banning stuff because some people find it offensive. and secondly, doesn't the florida legislature have anything better to do than debate the societal pitfalls of trucknutz?

i don't live here

previously, i told you why you should care about runaway government spending. today i am going to explain to you why poorly written laws suck.

i live in maryland. i own a house in maryland. i pay taxes in maryland. my paycheck gets sent to maryland. i am registered to vote in maryland. all my utility bills go to maryland. i pay maryland property tax. yet for some reason, arlington county virginia wants me to register my car there and pay virginia state property tax on it. why? because i like to visit my fiance who lives in arlington and i occassionally stay overnight. i received a letter (addressed to me at my house in maryland no less) stating that according to 14.2-69 of the arlington county code, all vehicle parked or garaged in arlington county register within 60 days. to be more precise,

14.2-69 Persons required to apply for and procure motor vehicle license; exceptions to application of article. (a) Every person owning a motor vehicle, trailer, or semi-trailer, with situs in Arlington County as defined by the Code of Virginia, Section 46.2-754, as ammended, shall make the application for and procure a county motor vehicle license tag within thirty (30) days of acquiring situs within the county or within thiry (30) days of purchasing a vehicle with situs in the county.

at this point, if you bothered reading that, you are probably wondering what the hell "situs" means. well according to the code of virginia, section 46.2-754, it means:

The situs for the imposition of the license requirement under the ordinance shall be the locality in which the vehicle is normally garaged, stored, or parked. If it cannot be determined where it is normally garaged, stored, or parked, the situs shall be the domicile of its owner.

the fee for registering in virginia is only $24, which is not that bad, and to be honest, i would probably pay it just to avoid the hassle. the catch is, when you register to get the county decal, you are suddenly subject to the virginia state property tax, which is assessed yearly based on the value of your car, which for me could be a couple hundred dollars a year. now aside from it being somewhat dubious of virginia to try and collect state property tax on a non-resident, the definition of situs is based entirely on the word "normally".

who decides what "normally" means? more than 50% of the time? more than 75% of the time? does my situation qualify as normally? my car spends at least 9 hours a day on the way to, or parked at work in DC. it spends probably a good week out of any given month parked at the airport in baltimore. and it spends probably one or two days a week plus just about every weekend at my house in laurel. what if normally means more than 50% of the time, do i only have to pay 50% of the property tax? you bet your ass it doesn't. what if i lived in another state in which i was already paying property tax on my car? do i have to pay it twice?

i suspect in the end, i'll just pay up because it'll cost a hell of a lot more to fight it than it will to just pay it (you might notice this is the same tactic used by the RIAA to sue 12 year old girls), unless someone knows a lawyer that has a bunch of spare time, loves to work pro bono and enjoys sticking it to the man?