Written by csbrown on June 12th, 2010
I was listening to the June 4 broadcast of NPR’s On The Media radio show on my iPod yesterday. The were discussing Dreamland: The Way Out of Juarez a book describing the horrific effects of the drug traffic and narco-gangs on that boarder town. Although I’m not likely to ever read that book, just hearing it discussed and descriptions of some of the incidents from the book was like a punch in the gut. The impact on normal people, the police and government of Juarez, all of Mexico and increasingly the United States was shocking. I knew all this before hearing this piece but even this brief discussion brought it home to me.
It seams pretty clear that the “War On Drugs” has been a huge failure and in fact has been counterproductive. We throw huge numbers of people in jails for using, and selling drugs at a huge cost to society. Drug users fund huge criminal enterprises that corrupt our governments. Gangs are tearing apart Mexican society and contributing to increased immigration to the US, much of it illegal. And in the end we probably haven’t stopped a single person from using drugs.
It seems to me that the only answer is to legalize drugs and the trade in drugs.
Will this result in people destroying themselves, their families and corrupting society? Yes, same as now. The difference is that the funds we use for enforcing drug laws, jailing people and fighting gangs can be used for more constructive purposes. If Mexico goes along with this, the reason for the drug gangs will disappear along with the corruption it engenders.
If people want to destroy themselves, let them. It’s their right to do so. The cost of trying to stop them is too high.
(Just call me a Libertarian idealist.)
Posted in Economics, Politics | No Responses »
Tags: Opinion
Written by csbrown on May 28th, 2009
(My reply to Brian Dunning’ discussion of “The Fallacy of Locally Grown Produce” http://skepticblog.org/2009/05/28/the-fallacy-of-locally-grown-produce/#comment-8136.
I’m not sure that this discussion is really a comprehensive argument against the idea of locally grown. If I was a skeptic (and I am) I would accuse you of cherry picking your data and setting up straw-men. I have no argument with the specific examples you describe, only that the title “The Fallacy of Locally Grown Produce” isn’t warranted.
I’m not an expert in food distribution or nutrition, although I have tried to educate myself on the subject (there, I’ve just handed you a loaded gun) but my understanding of the benefits ascribed to “locally grown” foods boil down to two arguments: First, locally grown foods are more likely to be fresher than foods that come from further away (ceteris paribus) and second, there are greater energy and infrastructure costs to delivering foods from far away compared to foods from near-by (free-ware traveling salesmen modeling programs notwithstanding).
Does this mean that locally grown foods are better for you? Maybe not, it will vary on a case by case basis, but for many foods such as fruits and vegetables that usually are best eaten fresh from the fields (you haven’t lived until you eaten fresh picked corn, minutes off the plant) I think that argument can be made. Whether or not these vegetables are “better” for the consumer is a matter for a more comprehensive discussion. I’m know that pro-local advocates will also bring up processing, pesticides, non-organicly grown as potential arguments but in my mind these are separate issues that stand or fall on their own regardless of whether vegetables are grown locally or not.
The second energy argument is a bit more difficult. Most likely the Chilean cherries in my refrigerator and the Brazilian OJ in my freezer took more energy to get to me than cherries from California or orange juice from the tree in my backyard but I enjoy fruits out of season. Based in my own experience running the trading and logistics operations for an international non-food commodity company there are huge structural inefficiencies in the global movement of goods that lead me to the conclusion that there is, on average, more energy wasted moving goods a long distance than is wasted moving goods a shorter distance. When energy is cheap or there are other efficiencies this may not be an issue. Now we come to the point of considering whether the energy markets are properly valuing the cost of carbon in the price of energy. I think the answer is no, but again we can have that separate discussion.
In the end, I think that the farmer’s market has come to represent the local food movement in the minds of many simply because people believe that they can reliably obtain locally grown produce at a farmer’s market but not at a typical supermarket. Locally grown is really a much broader subject: What is the best (most healthful, most efficient, least impact) way of producing food for the worlds growing population. I’m not convinced that the current system is “the best of all possible worlds.”
Posted in Economics, Environment | No Responses »
Tags: Economics, Environment, Opinion
Written by csbrown on February 7th, 2009
February 8, 2009
I was listening to Mac Geek Gab 190 the other day as I was doing my daily treadmill routine when a reader’s question on how to resolve a MobileMe syncing problem was read and discussed. As usual Dave and John fell into a discussion of their dissatisfaction with MobileMe and the many problems they have had trying to resolve syncing issues. As I huffed and puffed my way through my routine I got to thinking, “I wonder why don’t have all these problems with MobileMe and when I do have sync problems I can resolve them with little fuss or muss?” Of course the answer is: I have no idea. It is clear, however, that Dave and John, and many others are still experiencing serious problems with MobileMe but it is also clear that others are not, and these people are less likely to complain in blogs, podcasts and in online forums so we don’t really have any idea how common these problems are across the entire user base.
Here’s my situation. I use a MacBook Pro, a dual G5 desktop and an iPhone at my home/home office. I sync Bookmarks, Calendars, Contacts, Keychains, Mail accounts and rules, Yojimbo Items (only a thousand items or so) and MacJournal entries. I’ve had a .Mac/MobileMe account since February 2000 and use iDisk storage as offsite backup for important documents and photos. (Yes, I encrypt sensitive documents myself.) I also have an iWeb site although my main website, which I maintain myself, is not hosted on MobileMe.
Prior to Apple’s conversion of .Mac to MobileMe last June I had huge problems with syncing. In fact my Yojimbo sync was seriously broken and I was communicating with Bare Bones Software about how to fix it. Then came the “Magic Day” when MobileMe went live. Everything was fixed, Yojimbo synced like a champ and I hadn’t done anything. Since then I’ve had a couple excursions into sync-hell (inconsistencies, etc.) but I’ve been able to resolve them each time by using the following procedure:
- Unregister each computer
- Delete all sync data from MobileMe via the dialogue that appears when the last computer is unregistered
- Reset Sync history on both computers via iSync Preferences
- Verify that the sync data on MobileMe (MobileMe/Library/Application Support/SyncServices/Schemas) is gone
- Reregister the computer with the correct data and sync with Mobile Me verifying that the data are back up in SyncServices
- Reregister the second computer replacing all sync info on the computer with the info from MobileMe
- Done in 15 to 20 minutes
I know Dave and John have done this a thousand times without success but it works for me. Would it be better if I didn’t have to do this? Yes. Should Apple fix this? Sure. Is it a huge deal? Not for me. Is MobileMe worth $8 a month? Absolutely!
Signed
A Satisfied MobileMe user.
Posted in Macintosh | No Responses »
Tags: Computers, Macintosh
