First round won: VA Driver's fees declared unconstitutional

A Henrico judge declared the new VA traffic fines unconstitutional. The ruling only applies to Henrico County, but will be appealed. Of course, this gives every defendant a path to follow.

Running for cover, Kaine & Co. try the Jedi mind trick

Found this gem in a WTOP story this afternoon:

"Some of the widespread alarm over the fees, Kaine and the legislative leaders said, is the result of inaccurate claims on blogs and elsewhere that led people to believe they would pay thousands for traffic violations as minor as improper turn signals"

Huh?? Who was claiming you would "pay thousands"? Of course, once again, the little details slip through our legislator's hands.

In fact, if you were cited for failing to use your turn signal, you would be charged with reckless driving. That's because the Code of Virginia defines it as such. And since it's reckless driving, a publication by the Office of the Executive Secretary for the Supreme Court of Virginia states that the Civil Remedial Fee for failure to signal would be (3) installments of $350 each. While not thousands (who claimed that again?), it is $1,050.00 in addition to whatever court fine you would pay.

I don't think anyone should be scolded by Virginia legislators who *all the sudden* claim they didn't completely understand OR read what they had voted on. If they can't manage to find the time to read what laws they're giving their 'thumbs up' to, maybe they shouldn't be voting at all.

And while the politicians go about trying to deflect blame, it's becoming clearer that the real reason the fines went from "everyone will pay" to just "Virginians will pay" has little to do with the enforcement of the fines. The current talking points are that since Virginia couldn't make out-of-state people pay, they wouldn't even try. Now who is really going to believe that? If they had a 10% voluntary payment rate, that would still be a lot of money, wouldn't it?

I think the real reason is this: Politicians feared a backlash (tourism and truck drivers??) Imagine the negative publicity someone like AAA might generate if they warned drivers about taking a vacation to Virginia (AAA oddly sided *with* the fines...btw, something I might rant about later). Or what if truck drivers staged some type of protest?

Instead, they opted to spring this on the stupid people of Virginia, who are too busy working and paying taxes to notice. I hope our memories are not as short as our Virginia legislator's work day.

Growing support for traffic fine repeal

Looks like there's a growing sense of just how ridiculous these new traffic fine laws are. A story on WTOP this morning notes there is a web petition that currently has 14,000 + 'signatures'. We'll see. At this point I thought everyone would have forgotten about it and gone back to watching their American Gladiators.

Online Petitions:

http://petitiononline.com/va3202/petition.html (14,000 + signatures at the time of this posting)

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/VAtrafficfees/signatures.html (1,000 + signatures at the time of this posting)

Virginia's new (and completely unconstitutional) traffic fine law

Starting this July 1, 2007, the state of Virginia will be imposing new “Civil Remedial Fees" on drivers who get certain types of driving citations (tickets). Money generated from these fines will be used to pay for highway improvements throughout the state. And they're no ordinary fines, they're huge. These new 'fees' will be in addition to any fines that are currently charged. A speeding ticket could now easily cost you more than $3,000 in fines. The infractions, along with the fines are listed here.

Aside from the general shock of how steep the fines are, I was also amazed to learn that these fines will only apply to Virginia residents:

“The civil remedial fees established by this section shall be assessed on any resident of Virginia operating a motor vehicle on the highways of Virginia, including persons to whom Virginia driver's licenses, commercial driver's licenses, or learner's permits have been issued pursuant to this title; and persons operating motor vehicles without licenses or whose license has been revoked or suspended.”

So if you’re from another state and are caught speeding in Virginia, you’re immune to these fines. That just doesn't sound right with me, and I believe the Constitution of the United States bars this type of law being passed.

Article IV, Section 2 of the Constitution states that:

The citizens of each state shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several states.

If a citizen from Virginia has a privilege and immunity from some penalty within Virginia, then a citizen of North Carolina (while in the state of Virginia) has that same protection as well. The writers of the Constitution were most likely worried that a state like Virginia might pass laws that only applied to citizens of another state, like Maryland for example. Something like, “

All drivers on the roads of Virginia must pay a highway use fee of $100 per day (*residents of Virginia are exempt).

Imagine the havoc it would create if each state started writing laws that only applied to citizens of other states. Commerce would break down as states retaliated against each other. We would be left with kingdom 'states', rather than a "united" states (the Constitution's authors probably never considered that a state might write laws that ‘stick it’ to only their own people, but that’s what Virginia is going to do).

That's why Article IV Section 2 of the Constitution says that if a citizen of Maryland is exempt from this fine/fee/penalty solely by virtue of the fact that they are a from the state of Maryland, then the state of Virginia has to afford me the same immunity/privilege.

Not content to violate just one part of the Constitution, Virgina has also decided to take on that pesky XIV Amendment. This amendment guarantees, in a nutshell, that no state shall

"...deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Yet Virginia is planning to afford protection from this fine to the everyone but residents of Virginia. Imagine if the outcry if the phrase "Virginia resident" were replaced by any other description:

"The civil remedial fees established by this section shall be assessed on any (person of African decent, woman, Puerto Rican, Californian, resident of Richmond, etc) operating a motor vehicle on the highways of Virginia..."

In fact, the Supreme Court has already ruled on a similar issue once before (Hicklin v. Orbeck (No. 77-324)). In this case, an Alaskan law required preferential hiring of Alaskans based on their state of residence. The law was struck down in part because the law violated the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV, § 2.

The mystery in all this is not that Virginia Legislators have no idea what the Constitution says. It's why they would not fine everyone. Why would they forgo all that extra money? What about fining other state's residents has them rattled? You can see from the initial versions of this bill that they intended to fine everyone, then suddenly it was Virginians only.

Could it be they foresaw a bigger problem, maybe a federal problem dealing with interstate commerce?

Update: The VA Code Section related to the fees is located here.

Another mass murder, another link to anti-depressants

After the shock of the Virginia Tech shootings wear off, I hope that this nation will take this opportunity to ask this question: How much longer are we going to deny the link between shooting rampages and anti-depressants? The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the Virginia Tech shooter, Cho Seung-Hui, was recently on anti-depressants and may have been taking them at the time of the shooting. Surprised? I'm not. As soon as I heard about the shootings, I began to wait for this detail to leak out. Of course there would be a link because, as I noted in a previous article, almost all of them are. Ironically, both shooters graduated from the high school.

It's clearly not enough that the FDA put it's most serious warning on the boxes of serotonin reuptake inhibitors, warning that users were more likely to commit suicide and engage in aggressive behaviors than people who were taking a placebo.

For God's sake! Pull this crap off the market!!

Meth-a-demic Follow-up

After reading a story in today's Washington Post regarding "Mexican smugglers" importing crystal meth into the US, I was reminded of the fact that when the Sudafed restriction laws fail to to solve the "meth crisis" (as I predicted), politicians and law enforcement will have to find a good reason why their plan didn't work. Looks like they're starting to form a consensus on what that excuse will be.

The Meth-a-demic

One of the biggest problems with the meth story is the lack of hard evidence. Sure there are photos of drug labs and scary photos of addicts who have replaced their teeth with oozing sores. But where are the numbers? Frequently you get facts like this:

“While only one methamphetamine lab was seized in Virginia four years ago, 61 were seized in 2004;”

The reference for that was piece of data was “(CESAR Briefing, March 2005).” That CESAR briefing gave “DEA 2005” as a reference for that information. Pretty vague, eh?. But on their own website, the DEA shows that in 2004 they busted 75 labs. Hard to tell where the numbers are coming from. But the real issue is that no one seems to care. The facts of this problem is not nearly as important as the rhetoric.

Another thing that annoys me is the fact that many OTC cold relief products have been reformulated with phenylephrine, which, if you haven’t realized it yet, is a very poor replacement.

In a recent peer-reviewed letter published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, researches found that 7 of the 11 studies done years ago (which form the basis for the FDA’s approval for over-the-counter phenylephrine) showed that at the allowable 10 mg dose phenylephrine was not effective [Journal of Allergy & Clinical Immunology. 2006 Jul;118(1):279-80. Epub 2006 May 2]. An updated study (available here) comes up with the same conclusion: “There is insufficient evidence that oral phenylephrine is effective for nonprescription use as a decongestant. The Food and Drug Administration should require additional studies to show the safety and efficacy of phenylephrine.”

One of the researches, Leslie Hendeles was quoted as saying, “At the maximum 10 milligram dose, phenylephrine is no more effective than a placebo. It's like shooting blanks,"

One of the required precursors to making meth, along with psuedoephedrine is red phosphorus. A logical question (I would think) is, how inconvenienced would the average person be if we implemented restrictions on the sale of red phosphorus rather than Sudafed? Probably not much.

Does Consumer Reports have *Any* Credibility Left?

Following on the heals of their bogus car seat panic, Consumer Reports is now telling us that Mcdonalds has the best coffee. Eh...Mcdonalds? I'm sure it's OK, but could they really beat out such coffee masters as Burger King and Dunkin’ Donuts? Not to mention, Starbucks?

After the recent retraction of the car seat story, the February 1998 dog food debacle in which they smeared Iams dog food in error (did they ever print a corrected 'study'?) and their rigged tests against the Isuzu Trooper, I'll wait patiently to see if Consumer Reports figures out if something was wrong with this test as well before I have Ronald brew me a cup.

Virginia's Dirty Secret

Virginia has a vehicle emissions program that requires vehicle owners in Northern Virginia to get their cars/trucks inspected every 2 years. The idea is to prevent someone from driving around with a car/truck that is spewing high levels of toxic pollution into the air. You would think this was to keep the air clean. But you would have to be wrong. That's because anyone who owns a diesel vehicle with a gross vehicle weight of 8,500 lbs or more (some of the greatest polluters out there) don't have to get an inspection. Go figure. I wonder if it has anything to do with the fact that so many diesel vehicles are owned by businesses and local governments (buses)? Hmmmmm....

The real estate market is bad...but that's the good news!

Gotta love Realtors. A month ago they were predicting that we had already found the "bottom" of the real estate market. Now they're telling us, that *right now* is the bottom. This new reassessment is due to the fact that in December 2006, the market for existing housing fell by 8.4%, the biggest decline since in 17 years (or as some of the stories claim, "since 1982" [eh..one of those is wrong I guess].

Note the textbook use of "weasel words" in the following examples:

But economists said they believe the low point for housing has been reached and they are forecasting a slow rebound in 2007.

Just who are these "economists"? Surely not all economists are saying this. In fact, the article cites *just one* economist (David Lereah), who conveniently works for The National Association of Realtors.

And this one:

Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession.

Who are these "analysts"? No mention is made. But apparently they caution us from reading too much into the bad news (the 80% higher than predicted jump in jobless claims), and yet because of the optimism of unknown economists, they don't think we're headed for a recession ("Because of that optimism, analysts don't believe the slump in housing will drag the overall economy into a recession").

Ah..now that's reassuring. Let's all go out and buy a half million dollar closet condo.

Meth problem solved?

Virginia police say that meth lab busts have declined 70% between October 2005 - October 2006. They're claiming this decline is due to the decision to remove Sudafed and pseudoephedrine containing products from drugstore shelves. Strange, since pseudoephedrine products weren't removed from the shelves until April 2006. That means a 70% drop in only 6 months. That sounds hard to believe. Somehow I doubt the meth problem will be this easy to solve.

FDA says aspirin is bad, (and oh, acetaminophen might kill you)

This week the FDA announced that it was proposing new changes to the labeling of over the counter (OTC) pain relievers. Included in the list of pain relievers are the following:

• Products with Acetaminophen/Paracetamol (Brand name: Tylenol)
• NSAIDs (Aspirin, Ibuprofen (Brand name: Advil) , Naproxen Sodium (Brand Name: Aleve)

The FDA says the change is needed because Acetaminophen can cause liver problems and NSAIDs can cause gastrointestinal bleeding. However, I think FDA is really trying to warn the public about the dangers of Acetaminophen while taking some of the spotlight off the Acetaminophen containing products by throwing out the NSAID warning at the same time.

You should know that Acetaminophen is a relatively risky OTC pain reliever. It is so risky, that Acetaminophen overdose is now the #1 cause of liver failure in the United States. Multiple liver transplants and deaths have been caused by taking too much Acetaminophen. And overdosing is not that hard when you consider how many other "cold & flu" type products contain Acetaminophen. Tylenol has long been touted as a "safe" drug, especially for children after aspirin and salicylate containing products were tenuously linked (PDF) to Reye's syndrome. However, in light of the high risk of liver damage, the use of Acetaminophen containing products should be discouraged.

Unfortunately, the FDA has opted to warn people about the relatively low NSAID risk of gastrointestinal bleeding (compared to liver failure) at the same time, thereby obscuring from the public where the real risk lies.

CNN Officially Blows

As I write this, Glen beck is on CNN Headline news (sandwiched between two hours of Nancy (dis) Grace) doing some sort of stand-up routine...speaking in falsetto.

CNN is offering the droning Larry King Live with Jonbenet Ramsey's dad. This, on top of the CNN website now offering about 1/2 of it's stories in streaming video....which doesn't work on my Firefox (requires Windows Media Player). Add to that the fact that at work, I can't look at streaming content...so CNN is now about as useful for news as a freaking brick.

Look at CNN Headline NEWS' line up for tonight:

• 7-8pm - Glen Beck
• 8-9pm - Nancy (dis)Grace
• 9-10pm - Glen Beck AGAIN
• 10-11pm - Nancy (dis)Grace AGAIN
• 11-12pm - Showbiz Tonight (WhooHOooo...tabloid news!)
• 12-1am - Glen Beck (in case you missed it)
• 1-2am - Nancy (dis)Grace AGAIN In case you're tired of jabbing your eye with shards of glass.
• 2-3 - Headline News - Oh look, news - when everyone's gone to sleep.

CNN has a nice rotation of Anderson Cooper (MY GOD...RUN ANDERSON...RUN AS FAST AS YOU CAN TO ANOTHER NETWORK!) and Larry King. Has there ever been a worse interviewer in history? I think not. At least Larry is good for about 5-10 uncomfortable silences for each hour of interviews. I'm just waiting for someone to ask "Larry? Are you sleeping??"

And to think it all started out so promising....

OMG! Did you lock the door?

I have a college memory that has stuck with me to this day (and probably will for the rest of my life). I had just finished up a class and was walking down a very busy street on campus when I came upon a pedestrian traffic jam. It seems that some unlucky guy had lost the key to his (very expensive) bike’s Kryptonite lock. I’m sure he tried everything he could think of to get the lock off his bike, but had now resigned himself to hacksawing through the hardened steel. It was probably 100+ degrees and this guy was just sawing away, sweating and blocking part of the sidewalk causing everyone to have to step around/over him. This scene has stuck with me so long because at the time I remember thinking “He's probably stealing that bike, and everyone is going to, for at least a second, think that same thought." Then that thought would be followed up by a secondary thought of “…nahh…no one would steal a bike by hacksawing the lock right here in broad daylight!” To this day I still think that guy was stealing the bike.

Then a couple of years ago, it came out that all of those U-Locks were easily defeated. Not with some high-tech device, but by the barrel of a Bic Round Stic™ pen . You know, the $.10 pens that are everywhere? Well apparently if you jam the barrel of one of those pens over the tubular keyhole of the U-lock and twist, it opens just like you had the key. When I found out about that, I immediately flashed back to the guy hacksawing and thought “I bet he’s laughing about that now”.

It was a shock for everyone to find out that the security offered by the “Microsoft” of bike locks, the Kryptonite lock, was a complete illusion. More troubling, It had been an illusion since day one, but no one (or not many) knew it.

Now the facade has been dropped on another ubiquitous piece of security hardware: Your front door lock. Recently a slew of information has been published on the Internet (documents, videos, how-to's, etc) regarding the bump key. What is it you ask? It's a generic key that can be made in about 30 mins by an 11 year old and any old spare key. And with this key, that same 11 year old, with no experience what-so-ever, can open your front door lock (yes, and your deadbolt too) in about 5 seconds. Don't you feel secure now? Here's a video of an 11 year old girl with no locksmithing experience opening a Kwikset lock in about 5 seconds.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Master locks can be defeated with a beer can.

Maybe it's time to bring back the moat.

Coffee again linked to lower diabetes risk

A new study published today in the journal, Diabetes Care, once again shows a strong correlation between coffee consumption and a reduced risk of type-2 diabetes. In this study, the risk was 60% lower(!)

Another Study Says Antidepressants cause Violent Behavior

Regular readers might remember a post I did awhile back on antidepressants and how they've been shown to increase suicidal behavior. Today brings news of a new study (to be published in the Public Library of Science) that shows that the drug Paxil causes an increase in violent behavior over placebo. In the study, users of Paxil were twice as likely to have a violent episode than people who were given placebo. Unfortunately, it's the rest of society that has to pay for these violent outbursts.

Meteorology is the New Astrology

I'm not sure when it happened, or if it's always been this way, but meteorology is now resorting to cold reading techniques like those used in astrology, palm reading and lie detector tests. After issuing dire warnings about the 2006 hurricane season (and scaring the crap out of everyone within 200 miles of a coast) the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has quietly "revised" their prediction.

This of course, calls into question the value of a prediction that is constantly 'revised' to reflect the current reality. Now NOAA is saying that the hurricane season won't be that bad after all, however they made sure to throw a "but hey, watch your back!" comment just to cover them in case there's a Katrina Part II ("...we are not off the hook by any means").

So here's my "horoscope" reading of the 2006 hurricane season:

It will be a mild year for Hurricanes, but watch for the full moon! It can cause unpredictable results. September's rain will bring about a tempest in a teacup, and New Orleans will breathe a sigh of relief when the sun shines on Bourbon Street.

New WiFi virus?

Yesterday I was at a conference and pulled out my laptop to see if the building had any free wireless available. There was one, with an SSID of "Free public wifi" I tried to connect, then noticed that it was a peer-to peer wireless network. I thought that was odd...and it didn't work anyway. I closed my laptop and forgot about it. Then tonight, my girlfriend and I are both on the couch using our laptops with my wireless router and low and behold, the SSID "Free Public wifi" shows up again on both of our machines, with a very strong signal. This made me a bit concerned. It was the same SSID I had seen earlier, and was (on both machines) a peer-to-peer connection type. My machine automatically connected (for some reason my router dropped its connection at this time) to the "free public wifi". I disconnected it and after getting my router back up and running, did some research. Turns out there are a few other people who have noticed this same phenomenon. Also today, this story came out. Odd coincidence, or are we about to see a wildfire of wifi viruses?

Is this a new virus that's infecting machines via wireless connections? If so, this might be ugly. Let me know if you've seen anything like this, or if you know what this is.

A Greater Evil Than.....Evil

There are only a few things I really hate in the world and few of those rank up there with valet parking. I know many people just love it. You don't have to worry about finding a parking spot in a crowded area, etc. That's a nice thing, I agree. But the part I hate is what you have to do to get that convenience.

Primarily, you have to give your keys to a complete stranger, who very easily could have a lengthy (violent?) criminal record. Not only that, but if anything happens to your car, they're not responsible (they tell you that on the ticket). So you pay a psychopath $20 to park your car, which may be scratched, wrecked, stolen, have its spare tire stolen (yeah...make sure you check that, especially if you have a nice rim on the spare...trust me...it happens) etc...and it's your fault. Or even worse, you could have the valet make a copy of your keys, then break into your house, set up hidden video cameras then hide under your bed for two days. Sound crazy? Well, That's exactly what happened to this poor woman.

Why on earth would you give a complete stranger your keys!??? OH YEAH! They're a "valet". Dumb....but everybody's doing it.

Here's an idea for all those stolen laptops with 'sensitive info'

Go to this site, read and understand. It's freaking free people!!! It would stop all of this concern with stolen laptops/data. You can even carry it along with you on a flash drive.