Lee.org

What is the deal with this?

When I double-click a .mov file, it takes 30+ seconds for Quicktime to power up and play the file.

When I plug my iPhone into my computer, it takes 2+ minutes to backup the iPhone every time… and THEN it starts syncing.

iTunes is DOG SLOW to do anything and everything. It is USELESS as a player of anything because I can’t even freaking scroll down a list without frustration.

It never was a very good podcast player. I just switched back to the open source, free, Juice podcast player (an app that hasn’t been updated in 5 years!) and it’s sooo much better.

The interface is still completely non-intuitive. While I watch other people using it, their mouths always say “it’s so easy!” but the frustration in their fingers and eyes tell me they are lying.

I just reinstalled windows due to a hard drive crash. My computer was lighting fast at everything as I was reinstalling apps until I came to reinstalling iTunes. Fucking boat anchor of an application.

The ONLY reason I use iTunes is to sync my iPhone to Outlook.

Could someone please offer one reason why the iTunes interface isn’t completely worthless?

It’s worse than worthless because I keep throwing time at it just to get a few freaking songs and movies put onto my iPhone and nothing is freaking happening.

iTunes wants to “own” my music and video collection but it does a crappy job of finding it (how the frig do you tell it “Look in folder x for my music?) and just as crappy job of sorting it (one giant list of 8,500 media files is NOT helpful). It wants to copy all my files to one central location for no effing purpose. It can’t even tell (or be told) that a file it previously found isn’t there any more.

I could rant for 10 paragraphs about the worthlessness of this interface. Here’s just an outline.

CRAZY slow –  clicking most anything takes a full 0.5 seconds for a response and I never see an hourglass cursor. And that’s  just an “Eff you user, you learn to wait!”

INSANE menu choices – For instance, I can’t even look my iPhone preferences unless my iPhone is plugged in.

NO WAY to tell it simple things like “here is where you should look for my music”

AMBIGUOUS controls. If you “Delete” something in iTunes, are you deleting the content?

DOESN’T PLAY WELL WITH OTHERS. If you want to find the folder where you’ve put a piece of music, sure, you can do a “Get Info” to see what folder it’s in but then you have to go to Windows Explorer and navigate there by hand.

There’s tons of other examples. But I’ve spent enough time on this stupid program.

Update 11-16-09: Be sure to read the comments before assuming this post has all the info you need.

from the CDC on their page Key Facts About Seasonal Influenza (Flu)

Every year in the United States, on average:

• 5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
• more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
• about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

From the Associated Press and The Discover Channel

SWINE FLU COUNT: 4,000 DEAD, 22 MILLION ILL

The fall flu season has only just begun and already thousands have died from the H1N1 virus.

Estimates of deaths caused by the swine flu have grown to nearly 4,000 since April, roughly quadrupling previous estimates

To borrow from TJIC’s (and the creator of the ONOZ OMG avatar)

But wait. How deadly is the Swine flu really? Let’s see…. four thousand divided by twenty two million is…
4,000 / 22,000,000 = 0.000181

Swine flu AKA H1N1 is 0.018% fatal
Ok, so how deadly is the average flu?

From the CDC stats above, roughly 10% of the US population gets the flu each year… that’s 30,400,000 people. And 36,000 people die from it…

36,000 / 30,400,000 = 0.00118

The average flu is 0.11% fatal

Comparing the two…

0.0011 * n  = 0.00018

n = 6.1

The average flu is 6.1 times more deadly than swine / H1N1 flu.

WHAT????

You’re kidding, right???

Someone is making a lot of money by causing an unwarranted panic. I’m betting it’s the maker of the influenza vaccine and influenza test.

As I was exiting the rear door of the bus on my way home, 3 or 4 people got on the bus through the back door. There’s big signs saying that you’re not allowed to do that so I looked into it.

Yup, fare evading is crazy rampant. This article says:

A study conducted in 2004 and 2005 by the Municipal Transportation Agency and released last year found that between 54 and 73 percent of riders at three subway stations didn’t pay a fare or show a pass.

WHAT? Roughly 60% of riders are freeloaders?!?!?!?! You are kidding, right?

Oh my. Read this from January 2009:

In the past two years, Muni has more than doubled its staff of fare inspectors, to 49
…
The investigation helped kick-start reforms to Muni’s fare enforcement, which helped the agency collect $35,000 in fare-evasion tickets from July through September [2008 I believe]

That sounds good until you do the math. A first time offender pays a $50 fine. Liberally assuming that every one of the fare evaders was a first time offender, and that a pathetic 50% of ticketed people actually pay, that means Muni issued 35,000 / $50 / 50% = 1400 tickets in 90 days.

Therefore, there are 49 inspectors that issued 1400 tickets in 90 days.

The entire Muni inspection team issued 1400/90 = 15.6 tickets per day for 90 days.

15.6 tickets / 49 inspectors = The average inspector issued 0.32 tickets a day over 3 months.

You have GOT to be kidding. On my way home tonight, in 30 minutes, I saw more than 10 people walking in the back door of  a Muni street car and then the #14 bus. Apparently if I were a Muni inspector and I ticketed those folks, I would have just done my job for an entire fricking month.

This is wrong.

I am outraged.

Really.

Some fliers made it to the front step of the building. They remind me that I live in San Freaky Cisco.

From the website…

Rent control has been a road block for Landowners, but it does not stop them from taking advantage of renters. For example:

- 2 bedroom apartments being advertised as 4 bedrooms
(calling the living room and dining room bedrooms),
charging twice the value of the apartment to maximize profits.
So, this guy didn’t actually notice he was moving into a tiny city apartment?

- realtors bribing senior tenants to move out so they
can jack up the rent to “market value.”
Hmm, good idea

- renters fixing their apartments themselves instead of calling
the Landowners afraid inspections will force them out.
So this guy would rather continue to live in a place that -should- be condemned rather than use the existing laws and force the landlord to make repairs? Ok… umm…

I like that the website has a (insane) poison pill statement

The FBI in the Bay Area with help from the police have been known in the past to spread disinformation to prevent popular movements from interfering with business as usual, (COINTELPRO era and beyond). DO NOT TRUST any rent strike statement you see that is racist, authoritarian, anti immigrant, sexist, factional, or contradicts anything you read in this statement. With the economy in the state that it’s in today a rent strike could very well scare many wealthy Landowners and realty companies (look up COINTELPRO).

Removing Landowners’ control over properties they don’t live on would be real property reform. They definitely shouldn’t control or profit from land they don’t need (use your imagination). Striking rent could be the beginning of this process. Our ability to organize our community will determine how successful striking rent will be.

I went to his recommended website and found this list of how terrible CitiApartments/Skyline is. From that site:

* Showing up at tenant’s doors late at night with a couple of big guys, for “inspections”
The law says they have to be “announced” and appear at a “reasonable time”. Dude, just tell them to come back tommorrow!

* Snooping around tenants’ apartments on false pretenses like inspections, and then looking for things they can use against tenants
What illegal activities were you hiding?

* Telling tenants “we can do this the easy way, or the hard way”
So you did something that caused the building to be condemned, got caught and the landlord asked you to leave. It was time to quit yesterday. Why didn’t you just leave?

* setting up tables in the lobby with a photo copier and demanding ID from tenants
Huh?

* putting notices up saying tenants aren’t allowed in the building
Wha?

* refusing to repair elevators in buildings full of seniors
If the elevator is in the lease, make them fix it. If not…

* telling tenants they will call the FBI, homeland security, or immigration on them
Ok, what did you do? Really?

* (in at least one case) showing up at a tenants’ door wearing fatigues and a firearm
The landlord has a license to carry in your San Francisco neighborhood? Man, you live in a shitty neighborhood. You should really move!

* pretending they didn’t receive rent and then issuing evictions for lack of payment of rent
You didn’t pay by check and you didn’t get a receipt. Ok.

* issuing evictions for roommates “in violation of lease” when roommates are legal tenants
Are they? What -exactly- does your lease say? Your friends can’t crash on your couch forever, really.

* refusing to pay interest on security deposits
Dude, it’s like 1% interest. $20/year or something. Just let it go.

* telling immigrants or people of color that their “money isn’t good here”
There are serious laws about that. If you can prove those statements, you’re golden.

* videotaping tenants as they walk out of their doors
That sounds like a good thing, since even the landlord, who is packing, got mugged with your rent money.

* letting bedbug epidimics run unabated
Umm…. get a new bed? Bedbugs are hard to get rid of, really. Sorry.

* doing construction on buildings in such an irritating way that tenants are forced to leave
Yes, you’re right, they should use hammer muffs.

* demanding meetings with tenants at the church and market office
Those Bitches!

* trying to impose draconian house rules on tenants
Which one? “Turn off your faucet before you go out of town” or “It’s 11 o’clock, turn down that crazy rap music!”

* trying to require that tenants tell them when they’re leaving town
Huh?

* issuing evictions when tenants leave town for the weekend
Evictions take weeks. And why are you getting evicted? Oh yeah, you left the faucet on for 3 months while you were out of town.

* issuing evictions for messy apartments
Dude, if it smells that bad, you really should clean it up. And yes, you can get evicted for that.

* requiring tenants to hand deliver their checks
The lease has the landlord’s address at the top of it. On the 26th of every month, write and mail a check. Is it that hard? Apparently. That’s why I advocate building in late-fees to leases so when people like you write your rent check late every freaking month, the landlord says, “No problem. If received after the 5th of the month, you owe an extra $20. Pay or get out.”

* failing to fix the heat
San Francisco law is quite clear about how much heat an apartment should get. If it’s substandard, lodge a complaint. But if you want a sauna, move to Iceland. They have lots of those there.

* claiming tenants are “nuisances” and then offering them market rate rooms in other buildings
Well, with your crazy parties and running the faucet for months at a time and that smell, that smell! You should move further away. Or save some money buy your own place so you can do all those things in your own house.

Here’s the new chant for our picket line:

Free Housing! No Rent!

Free Rent! No Housing!

I was wondering today, “What exactly is the purpose of the International Space Station and all those Space Shuttle trips for upkeep? Aren’t those flights really really really expensive?”

A pretty convincing answer comes from Maciej Ceg?owski. In short: government space-cheese. They could be doing potentially useful things, but instead “…the skeleton crew on the ISS has been fixing toilets, debugging laptops, changing batteries, and speaking to the occasional elementary school over ham radio.” I want my ten billion dollars back.

This is a really good article. Read A Rocket to Nowhere.

Baking yeast packets at the supermarket: $3 for 3 0.25 oz packets. $64/lb

Bulk baking yeast: $2.29 for a 1lb brick. $2.29/lb

Packets cost 28 times as much. Yipe.

Smart and Final sells packets right next to bulk 1 lb containers. The packets cost $3 for 0.75 oz, the bulk costs $4 for 16 ounces. You do the math. Buy the bulk yeast. It freezes perfectly well after being opened for at least a year (I haven’t ever had to freeze it longer, I use it)

Costco, Sams Club and similar stores also have the 1lb brick of yeast. If you make more than 3 loaves of bread this year, it’s worth getting the large size. With my breadmaker, I make about 30 loaves/year.

Rainbow also has open bulk yeast. Yeast generally lasts at least 1 year in the freezer… except for the yeast I got at Rainbow. I’m pretty sure it needs to be refrigerated and not frozen because twice now I got yeast there, made a loaf, froze the rest and the yeast was dead after. :-(

I offer this in the spirit of a previous rant of mine, Megan’s Law Wouldn’t Have Saved Megan.

Remember Love Canal, that awful housing development where residents kept dying from Leukemia and shit in unexplainable numbers until someone figured out that the whole place was built on a chemical dump? This case was so serious that the government created a whole series of laws, commonly called “Superfund” to keep horrible things like this from happening.

The trouble is, it was -well known- that it was built on a chemical dump. Hooker Chemical had sold the land to the city under threat of the city just taking it by eminent domain. Hooker Chemical told them there were nasty chemicals down there and suggested that building a school and housing development on it wasn’t the best idea in the world. They even insisted on a disclaimer notice going into the bill of sale saying (I’m paraphrasing) “Dude, there’s some nasty shit down there. But you bought it so it’s not our problem any more.”

So the city turned around, poked some big leaky holes in the (previously) sealed and very dangerous landfill and had a school and housing development built on it, not telling anyone that there was nasty shit down there.

The purpose of Superfund is to clean up toxic waste sites where they couldn’t get the owner to pay for it. Well, we all know who the freaking owner is. There is a deed on record in (I presume) Niagara Falls City Hall. We know who the criminally negligent people are, why are they not in jail?

This originally pointed out to me by TJIC.

Sure, it’s easy to upload your company’s videos and your friend’s videos to Youtube. It’s hosted for free and can stand virtually unlimited downloads. But I can do that right here at my web provider without giving my content to a third party… who -might- be around in 5 years and -might- keep the links to my content the same for 5 years, without selling out to Youtube’s advertising.

Yes, you’ll get more exposure by posting to Youtube. And using their limitless bandwidth for high-bandwidth applications is nice. But you should post locally and then consider posting to Youtube as part of your marketing plan or “emergency bandwidth plan”. Always link back to the original content. It’s just too easy to give the “keys to the store” to too many people.

Update 3-13-08: I just read this article about Youtube. It reminds me of Kozmo.com in the dot com era.

Rex Wong, chief executive of Next.TV (formerly Dave Networks)… says, it costs a provider about $2.50 for every 1,000 views of a user-generated three-minute video clip. But that clip will bring in just $1 or so in banner ad revenue, he says. In other words, says Wong, profit can only be made when clips are getting tens of thousands of views.

So let me get this straight: it costs $2.50 to serve 1,000 views… and that generates $1 in revenue. (1-2.5=-1.5) And if we do that a whole lot, we’ll make it up in volume! Yeah.

At Burning Man, under the man there were a couple preachy signs. Here’s my favorite.

Sorry it’s hard to read. I lost my digital camera at the Albertsons in El Cerrito on my way to Burning Man so all I had was my emergency film camera.

The jist is:

There’s this chemical used to make cell phones that’s only found in the Congo. People mine it and the civil war kills the gorillas. And they’re tasty. Or something like that.

Read it for yourself.

Oh and we’re killing the polar bears because they have all our oil, not because they’re tasty.

Me at work:
>> Do you know how I can allow my Windows and Exchange passwords can be
>> different? If not, say so and I’ll go googling for info.

Him:
>I do not know off hand, I would need to research it.

So does that mean he -will- research it or he -could- research it? And why didn’t he take me up on my offer? Maybe he didn’t read my whole (2 sentence long) email.

This from an email that I decided not to send to a friend

Thank you for writing an intelligent reply to my question.

I’m not referring to you at all in saying that I find it terribly frustrating when when a question in the middle of a conversation is deliberately not addressed.

And I find it a pleasure to deal with people that -do- maintain the conversation.

(unfinished Rant)

No seriously. At the end of the ingredients list of tens of thousands of products it reads “and spices”. So what are they? Pepper? Nope, ’cause I’ve seen things that list pepper separately. Salt? No, they always list that. Oregano? Bug parts? Plutonium? Dirt? What?! I want to know!

[written 5-7-02, updated 2-14-03, put into my blog 8-15-05]

Stop saying “God Bless America” in response to September 11th! That is what got us in trouble in the first place.

Insert rant here. Discussion points:

• Other, positive things that can be said
• Religious separatism is extremely counter-productive for: our society,
  world productivity, burning personal hatred, long term personal recovery 

  example webring text: source
  Christians all over the world, please pray for America and for all
  those involved in the terrifying and horrible tragedy that took place there in
  the USA. Pray also for the service men and women who are in Afghanistan! We
  know that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the only one that can give everyone
  the strength and support…

• Vengeful god vs. merciful god. Relate that to why we say "God Bless
  America"
• Separation between church and state
• Relate my personal internal pain. We’ve got to redirect the energy
  positively
• They take their religion very seriously and literally (IE 72 virgins in
  heaven). We do well not taking ours as seriously. So let’s keep it that way.
• How do you think it makes them feel when we say it?
• sidebar: "Ground Zero" as unfortunate terminology for gestalt.
  Suggest "The Pile", "The Site".
• Discuss the power that words and terminology have.
• Conclusion: It’s bad for everyone involved. So cut it out!

I see signs all over spouting about how great God is. There is this truck that’s been sitting just off the highway in Mount Olive for several months. It has a sign draped over it with a large flag and it says “God Bless Us All”. Another volunteered sign is on Rt. 519. It’s an 8′ x 4′ piece of plywood leaned up against a telephone pole crudely spray painted with the message:

That sign really freaks me out. Everyone is free to voice their opinion but
it really worries me to the core how caught up people are about their gods. And
I worry what terrible things my neighbors are capable of doing if someone or
something offends their sense of the infallibility of their god.

Look at that sign again… Look at the order he put things in.
"God" is first, "Country" last! So when the author refers to
Duty and Honor, that’s to his god and not to his country. It’s true that the
First Amendment of the Constitution refers to the freedom of religion, but he’s
forgotten that it’s an amendment. The Constitution itself (dry as the
text may be) and the country founded by it comes before all of the
amendments!

I suppose the author of this sign is angry at my critical commentary. I’ve
probably offended his Honor and his God. What do you suppose Duty requires him
to do to me?

Bibliography:

• God Bless America webring
  with 400 sites.
• news agencies, CNN, NBC, CBS, etc

[written 9-25-02 updated 1-24-03]

I wrote to Governor James McGreevey on 8-29-02 about this. I wrote:

Please do not rename Newark International Airport “Liberty International Airport at Newark”.

- Newark Airport had nothing to do with the attack. They’ll name the new World Trade Center after the attack, that is enough of a scar for it to leave.
- It’s a bland name that doesn�t identify the purpose for it’s naming.
- The reason for it’s naming will be completely moot (and mocked) the next time a terrorist attacks the US. And that will happen, sooner or later.
- It’s an ungainly name that doesn’t indicate where it is. The word “Newark” got tagged on at the end like the name of a shopping mall�. “The Mall at Short Hills”.

“Newark Liberty International Airport” is a slightly better choice but it still sucks.

Please don’t.

As you may know, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently approved changing the name of the facility from Newark Airport to Newark Liberty International Airport. Through the new name, Newark Liberty International honors the memory of the heroes of September 11, 2001, and reminds us all of the principles upon which our nation is founded.

Great, let’s go on a renaming spree… Jersey Truth City, Hudson Freedom River, New Liberty York City, The Empire Justice State Building….

Also, after I thought about this a while, I really really don’t want to use an airport named after an airline disaster! Would you want to sail on Norwegian Cruise Line’s Iceberg Princess? Or how about working in the Towering Inferno Towers? Or working in the McVey Towers office complex? This is so sick, it’s funny! No, it’s just sick.

1-24-03 I recently got an email from a total stranger (now I suppose he’s an “acquaintance” :-) about this Rant. He gave permission for me to repost his comments here:

I just wanted to say that I enjoyed your website. What prompts me to write, however, is your Rant about the renaming of EWK. I’m from Jersey, born in Elizabeth, lived there for 22 years. Now I’m in Northern Virginia. Down here, the GOP recently re-named Washington National Airport, Reagan National Airport in honor of the Conqueror of Genada, the Pasha of Panama, and the B’wana of Bedtime for Bonzo, his imperial excellency, Mister Nancy Reagan. (Personally, I can’t wait ’til they re-re-name it Reagan Memorial Airport.) Courageously, our Metro system refused to budget money for new signs for the airport MetroRail station, and they remained unchanged until Congress provided emergency funding money to make the alterations. No one here (except political appointees) calls it Reagan Airport. In the people’s eyes, it will always be Washington National. But I know how you feel about the issue. Actually, “Newark Liberty” isn’t half-bad. Beats “Reagan”.

Winch

And here is my response to him about this:

That stupid Reagan airport thing too! Ugh! I followed that in congress while it was happening. I had to turn off CSPAN, it made me so angry! The argument was that he was a “great” president and should be honored as such. But there is no way that anyone could tell if his legacy would be “great” until 10 or 20 years after he left office! By their reckoning, a president that printed money and gave it to the people would be “great”… until the currency devaluation catches up with everyone. Oh wait, that’s what happened.

To followup on this story just a little more… Yes, the Governor renamed Newark Airport. The question is, will anyone acknowledge the name change? A quick search on Google.com on 1-24-03 is enlightening.

After a year, no one has changed their websites to match the name change.

After 10 years, the old name is still more popular than the new one!

10-9-02

Everyone keeps talking about the “two party system” in the United States… Democrats and Republicans… Well, it’s not a two party system, it’s a multi-party system. Political parties are NOT (despite what they would like you to believe) a part of the government. So the next time a party manages to bend or break the rules or laws of the US government, know that corruption took place. (For instance, Lautenberg replaced Toricelli on the Democratic ticket for the NJ Senate race in November 2002. The law clearly forbade the switch but since Toricelli’s brother got in some trouble with the law, it looked like his name was tarnished enough that he’d lose…. so they were allowed to switch. Huh?)

The next time a candidate gets bumped from running merely because of it party affiliation, know that corruption took place; of course, if a candidate’s views are unpopular on their own, then he deserves to get bumped.

Why is it that so few of my friends put even a single photo of themselves on their homepage? Are they all -that- shy? Phoey on them!

I’m moving my Rants over from it’s old home on my site into my blog. I’ll release them gradually, offering time for comments.

You can tell it’s a rant by it being in the Rants Category.

Although these rants appeared before my Wordpress blog started, I’m dating them appropriately. So for the time being, you’ll find all my Rants in a pile as the very oldest blog entries. I have not changed the text from the original. I may feel differently now but I haven’t updated them yet… all in the fullness of time…

Don’t take these rants too seriously but don’t dismiss them either. Rants are, by their nature, usually a topic for (heated) debate.

R?nt:
noun:
- Violent or extravagant speech or writing.
- A speech or piece of writing that incites anger or violence
- (Chiefly British) Wild or uproarious merriment
verb:
- To speak in a loud, pompous, or prolonged manner

[Written 3-23-03]

It’s true.

Megan’s murderer, Jesse Timmendequas’ prior criminal history would not have put him on the Megan’s Law sexual predator list.

Megan’s Law created a sex offender registry. The idea is that if a community knows about a sex-offender in their midst, they can protect themselves against the person. To protect people like Megan, they probably should have created a pedophile registry. But they didn’t.

[Unfinished Rant]

Find:
O’Brien, Tim. 1996. Would Megan’s Law Have Saved Megan. New Jersey Law Journal 8 July, 1, 24-25.

The Brady Gun Law wouldn’t have saved Brady
The Brady Law forces waiting periods for handguns and background checks for potential purchasers. Although he has serious psychological problems, that wasn’t medically recorded until after the incident. John Hinckley wouldn’t have been stopped or even slowed down by these restrictions.

Jenna’s Law probably wouldn’t have saved Jenna
Jenna’s Law (1998) in New York State reduces the amount of “time off for good behavior” that a violent criminal can receive. It increases the actual time served from 66% of the sentence to 85% of the sentence. Her murderer, Nicholas Pryor had served 2/3 of his 14 year sentence (9.3 years) and was released on parole. During that parole, he killed Jenna Grieshaber. Jenna’s Law reasons that if he had served that extra 2.6 years, Jenna would be alive today.

Eh, I don’t buy it.

Sean’s Law would have saved Sean
Sean’s Law (enacted in NY in 2003) revokes the driver’s license or permit of a junior driver upon their first appearance in court… not at the arraignment 3 weeks later. It seems reasonable that a young driver might not have a handle on the whole “don’t drink and drive” thing. Phew, at least some of the laws are reasonable.

Kendra’s Law wouldn’t have saved Kendra (or Edgar)
This NY state law enacted in 2000 requires that people with a history of not taking their mental illness medication be forced into treatment. Unfortunately, her killer, Andrew Goldstein wasn’t resisting treatment. (reference: USA Today article) A few months after Kendra was killed, Edgar Rivera was killed by Julio Perez. Julio hadn’t resisted treatment either. Actually, he was begging for treatment. Read this snippet from Mcmanweb.

Two weeks before the subway incident, Julio called a friend, panic-stricken because he needed medicine and his Medicaid card had been canceled. Two days before the attack, he again called his friend, saying he wanted to go into a hospital, but he failed to make a planned rendezvous. On the day of the attack, he actually presented himself in the emergency room of a VA hospital, and later that day appeared at a police station and a courthouse to file a complaint against his “enemies”.

The Jeanne Clery Act probably wouldn’t have saved Jeanne Clery
(though I think disclosure is a very good thing)

The website says

Jeanne’s parents, Connie and Howard, discovered that students hadn’t been told about 38 violent crimes on the Lehigh campus in the three years before her murder.

By using the Jeanne Clery Disclosure website, I can see that in 2001 through 2003, there were 41 violent crimes involving students (including “non-campus” incidents).

By snagging some numbers , it looks like the national average of violent crimes in college in 1999 was (roughly) around 50 per 100,000 students per year. Lehigh’s crime rate was about 38/3 / 6,800 students = roughly 100 per 100,000 students per year. I haven’t researched this fully but it looks like Lehigh was “a bit more” dangerous than the average school. Would she have still gone to the school if she had known? I’d argue “probably”.

What Jeanne didn’t Know

Her killer was a drug and alcohol abuser, a Lehigh student whom Jeanne had never met. He gained access to her room by proceeding, unopposed, through three propped-open doors, each of which should have been locked. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
…
After learning that Lehigh had unilaterally absolved itself of blame in Jeanne’s death, we had no choice but to turn to the courts, suing the college for negligent failure of security and failure to warn of foreseeable dangers on campus. In 1988 Lehigh settled with us and agreed to materially enhance security on its campus….

Through my limited crime statistics info on the Lehigh campus, it unfortunately don’t seem like the security enhancements have done any good. I only know what’s been said on their website but it would seem tremendously difficult to prevent a smart, murderous Lehigh University student from entering a small suburban dorm (The Centenial II Complex) like the one Jeanne lived in.

The following is a very startling statement:
A recent survey, cited by the U.S. House of representatives, reported that thirty-eight percent of college women questioned had either been raped or were victims of felony sexual assaults.

But that doesn’t make sense… From 1998 to 2000, there were 5,500 “Forcible Sex Offenses” and “Nonforcible Sex Offenses”. Divide that by 3 for 1,833 per year. There are approximately 9 million college students in America. That means you have a 1,800 in 9 million chance of being a sex offense victim per year. 1,800 * 5 years in college / 9 million = 0.1% chance of being a victim in college. Lets take a wild guess and say that fully 3/4 of those 9 million aren’t undergraduates. that changes it to a 0.4% chance of being a victim… these numbers aren’t adding up.

I fear and loathe random crimes like this one as much as her parents did. The steps her parents took were, I believe very positive ones and will likely reduce college crime. But sadly, it probably would not have saved Jeanne Clery.

The Protect Act would not have saved Amber. Though AMBER Alert very well might have saved Amber

AMBER Alert is a good idea. It has saved lives. One should note that no laws needed to be created to enact the AMBER system. The “Protect Act” which President Bush signed in 2003 supposedly in support of the AMBER Alert is by and large a pile of horse shit. It enacts a pile of worthless, expensive, rights violating laws supposedly in the name of Amber Hagerman.

I will show you what the Protect Act does (according to Wikipedia). Take a moment and ask if any of these laws would have prevented or protected Amber Hagerman from being kidnapped and killed. (note that her murder is still unsolved)

* Provides for mandatory life imprisonment of sex offenses against a minor if the offender has had a prior conviction of abuse against a minor, with some exceptions.
* Establishes a program to obtain criminal history background checks for volunteer organizations.
* Authorizes wiretapping and monitoring of other communications in all cases related to child abuse or kidnapping.
* Eliminates statutes of limitations for child abduction or child abuse.
* Bars pretrial release of persons charged with specified offenses against or involving children.
* Assigns a national AMBER Alert Coordinator.
* Implemented Suzanne’s Law. Named after Suzanne Lyall, a missing college student of the University of New York at Albany, the law eliminates waiting periods before law enforcement agencies will investigate reports of missing persons ages 18-21. These reports are also filed with the NCIC.
* Prohibits computer-generated child pornography.
* Prohibits drawings, sculptures, and pictures of such drawings and sculptures depicting minors in (Miller test) obscene OR engaged in sex acts.
* Maximum sentence of 5 years for possession, 10 years for distribution.
* Authorizes fines and/or imprisonment for up to 30 years for U.S. citizens or residents who engage in illicit sexual conduct abroad.
* Does not include drawings, anime, cartoons, and/or comic satire.

[Written 3-20-03]

Which are you more afraid of, being killed by a nuclear power plant accident or being killed in a car accident?

Fact: In 2001, 40,000 Americans, 0.01% of the US population was killed in car accidents. Reference. About 40,000 per year have been killed in cars every year since at least 1957… That’s 1.8 million people IN AMERICA ALONE.

Fact: In the history of nuclear power, less than 1,000 people have been killed worldwide. Reference. Now go ahead and add to that the roughly 200,000 people killed by nuclear explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II.

Let’s do some wildly rough estimates….

Let’s assume that automotive deaths are similar per capita around the world. Let’s conservatively assume that 1 billion out of the 6 billion people in the world are subject to cars in a similarly life threatening way. The US has 270 million, or roughly 1/4 of the auto deaths.

1.8 million deaths * 4 = 7.2 million auto deaths worldwide since 1957.

Compare that to 200 thousand deaths due to nuclear power and explosives combined since it’s invention in 1945.

For the last 50 years, it’s been the case that you’re 30 times more likely to be killed by a car than any form of nuclear power, including bombs. If you exclude bombs, that figure changes just a little. You’d have been 7,200 times more likely to be killed by a car than a nuclear power accident.

Of course I’m skipping over a lot of details. But the point of this exercise is to point out the generalities, not the specifics. It’s likely that if you cared to do careful examination, many of the details fall away.

Here are some of the details I skimped on:

* Who is inside the study and who is outside… IE what about the other 5 billion people?
* 1 nuclear bomb can screw up all these numbers. My rant here is about public policy not international diplomacy.
* Many of the stats on nuclear power are probably artificially low. Adding on an order of magnitude or two to those numbers doesn’t make much statistical difference
* What about auto deaths before 1957? Hey, those are all the numbers I could come up with with a quick Google search.

Now which are you more afraid of?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’ll tell you how this is related to my Megan’s Law rant. People only act on things that are dramatic and sitting right in front of them. Car crashes happen every day… boring. Nuclear accidents make headlines… excitement! Megan’s killer getting the chair… excitement! Smoking yourself to a 1 in 3 chance at lung cancer… boring. Terminal obesity… boring.