Driving through "Photo Enforcement Zones": a guide for the perplexed.

This post is dedicated to motorists on the stretch of I-10 from the Maricopa County line to Tolleson city limits:

When approaching one of Maricopa County's fixed photo radar installations, you will be warned by at least two signs, one designating the "Photo Enforcement Zone" and another stating that the cameras are located 300 feet ahead. On seeing these signs:

1. If you live more than one county away, do nothing, but remain alert, as some drivers will stomp on the brake. Maricopa County is not serving tickets to Pima County or elsewhere in person, and Arizona law does not consider mail delivery proper services. After 180 days, the county's claim is no good.
   
2. If you have a plate cover lens obscuring wide-angle view of your license plate, do nothing.
   
3. If you live in Maricopa County or an immediately adjacent county and do not have a plate cover, check your speedometer. If you are not driving eleven or more miles per hour over the speed limit, do nothing.
   
4. If you are driving eleven or more miles per hour over the speed limit, gently reduce your speed to "ten over". If possible, do this without applying the brakes.
   
5. Continue to drive "ten over" or at your previous speed if less than ten over until you have passed the cameras.
   
6. Increase your speed to what is appropriate for conditions, if applicable.
   

Do not:

• Abruptly brake at the first sign.
  
• Slow to the speed limit if the prevailing safe speed is greater than the speed limit.
  
• Slow to below the speed limit, "just in case".

And if you are going to do any of the above, please get out of the left hand lane. You cause other drivers to have to apply the brakes, which wastes fuel and could cause an accident.

Drive safely and defensively, and never at a speed too fast for conditions.

A 'Blogger's Thanksgiving

I wish a happy (and safe) Thanksgiving to my readers--and would like to list three things for which I'm thankful, or perhaps three non-mutually-exclusive sets of people to whom I am thankful:

1. Kim and Thane for signing up to be contributors, even though they haven't shut me up and taken this over just yet,
   
2. Everyone who has helped to promote this 'blog and associated material, including but not limited to Evan Lisull, Laura Donovan, and the volunteer contributors to Ballotpedia,
   
3. Reasonable opponents and foils. An astute reader noted that I must agree with Nozick's idea, that the "separateness of persons" is of both practical and moral import. I think it enhances my life. While I'm known for being sometimes downright vicious to people I see as being wild, slanderous, or intellectually arrogant, reasonable, measured foils, opponents, or whatever one may call them--the sort of person who has me thinking "I can see how somebody could think that in good faith, and it's interesting..." make me a better commetator and a better person, providing ideas and perspectives I do not have as both one individual. This would be a dull 'blog if they agreed.
   
   At the risk of missing a few friends and acquaintances or fellow commentators--some of whom are in both categories--I'd like to single out the following: Joe Cobb, David Safier, Jim Peron, Nick Coons, Martel Firing, Tom Jenney, and even the anonymous coward "CLS". Even if some of them have their moments of being wild, slanderous, or arrogant, and even if some have the obnoxious habit of agreeing with me too often, they keep me honest and push my intellectual boundaries.
   

No, I am not up typing at 2:24 AM. I'm out of town, and hope to return to regular 'blogging by Monday.

A minor taxpayer revolt in Baja Arizona

"Espresso Pundit" Greg Patterson has a friend who asked around at a recent gun show to find out why TUSD budget overrides were voted down. The reported answer is somewhat surprising: not fiscal irresponsibility, not "secession" and frustration over having to pay when kids in their families don't go to public school, but rather the "La Raza Studies" program.

It seems completely lost on proponents of overrides, "home rule", and other fiscal laxity, that the relationship between the government and the governed, between the taxpayer and the tax spender, is one of give-and-take. It isn't symmetric, but the people have expectations of government--and they are right to have expectations of government. It is not sufficient for elected and appointed officials to have good intentions or to want to do Nice Things with the taxes collected; they must also deliver the goods, and respect the taxpayer.

In Pima County we're now learning the meaning of "consent of the governed". Teaching kids ethnic nationalism, group identity, that some people are better than others or otherwise "special" because their ancestors came from a certain place, or that there exists such a thing as group oppression, that's disrespect for taxpayers not from the elevated class. Likewise, manufacturing a "budget crisis" when there is a 1% revenue shortfall in order to justify tax increases, instead of cutting back the scope of city government, that's disrespect for the taxpayer. That's treating the interests of elected officials--those interests being re-election and supporting those niceties that have been added to the budget through the years--as more important than the interests of individual taxpayers. And asking--no, demanding!--constantly for more, more, more, out of proportion to population growth, is a disrespect of the voters.

The final results of this month's election (with irregularities presumably cleared up): defeat of "home rule", TUSD overrides, and even a few overrides in districts operating with overrides--a rare occurrence!--reflect nothing short of a loss of the consent of the governed. Rather than go on and on about how important education is (a non sequitur argument, really) those unhappy with the result ought to think: what's being done wrong? Should we try again or try another paradigm? And if we try again, how can we uphold our end of the bargain this time around?

The reasonable purchase happened anyway

Remember how TUSD wrapped up a money-saving software upgrade into their request for a huge and perhaps wasteful technology budget override?

Today's Arizona Daily Star reports that they've gone ahead with the purchase. In retrospect, this makes its inclusion in the ballot question look very cynical. "Hey voters! Approve a tax increase to upgrade our Internet connection and buy new workstations or we won't make a sensible cost-containing purchase...that we intend to make anyway."

Best of the 'blogs, week of 7-13 November 2009

A little late this time around.

In Arizona:

• Vishal Ganeshan is back to 'blogging,
  
• Matt Brown and Nick Martin remark on the Adam Stoddard file theft case (and the MCSO's fatuous and stupid testimony),
  
• Martel Firing counts bureaucracies in the House health care bill,
  
• and CLS (the Web's most interesting anonymous coward?) reminds us of the importance of accurate counting.
  

Farther afield:

• McMegan points us to news of further economic decline in Chavez's Venezuela,
  
• perhaps only paralleled by Ian Plimer's continuing personal sprint toward the gutter,
  
• John Quiggin reflects on Armistice Day,
  
• there's now a 'Blog on Optical Tweezers,
  
• we can hope Gavin Schmidt has put an end to deliberate misinterpretation of his recent paper by the anti-science set,
  
• and from Ilya Somin: Why Neglect of Communist Crimes Matters.
  

On science funding, moving beyond "Yes, Please!": Science Salon TONIGHT at 5:30 PM

A late announcement, for sure, but I'll put it out anyway.

I will be giving the fortnightly Science Salon tonight, Thursday 12 November 2009, at 5:30 PM, in the back room of the Auld Dubliner (at the intersection of Euclid and University, in Tucson) on the topic of science funding. Abstract is as follows:

Poll a roomful of academic scientists about funding and you will likely find a consensus position: "Yes, please!" Most of us are economically productive, but what we produce cannot be sold, which means we are largely dependent on grants from the government and the private sector. It is often argued that science is by its nature a public good and thus will be underprovided by the private sector. We will discuss to what extent this is the case, as well as under what conditions government funding of science is fair to nonscientists, how the funding paradigm affects the way science is done, and whether or not it can reasonably be improved.