OK License Plate Bar codes?

Much ado has been made about a plan to set up some 200 cameras around the state whose purpose will be to scan the bar codes at the bottom of our new Oklahoma licenses plates in search of people who are not listed as having auto insurance.

Rep. Mike Reynolds, said "That’s a horrible idea, It’s Big Brother at its finest.”

While I agree with Rep Reynolds that it is a horrible idea, I agree for reasons that are altogether different. I won't go into the big brother issues, I'm sure that other bloggers, radio talk show folks, the public, and our good legislators will do an excellent job going over those issues.

No, this is a really stupid idea for several technical reasons.

1. Most of the time the bar code will be completely covered up by folks with OSU, OU, NRA and other various vanity license plate covers. Or in my case, the bumper of my truck covers the infamous bar code.

The location of this bar code is such that any attempt to capture it electronically with an acceptable  rate of success is doomed to failure.

2.  The bar code  is so small I honestly doubt the ability of any camera to capture a clear image of it.  I took this image of my parked car from about 5 feet away. 



If only there were some other way that we could take a picture of a license plate and somehow match that plate to the owner of the car.  Surely there must be some other identifying mark other than the bar code that we could use....OHHH WAIT THERE IS!!!!!! IT'S THE STUPID PLATE NUMBER!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The sheer stupidity of this plan is so astounding to me that I really can't get past it so that I can get angry about the Orwellian nature of it.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving yall! I've been enjoying the week doing nothing except lounging around. It's been pretty great. Today, more lounging around is on the the menu as is turkey and all the trimmings.

I've got plenty to be thankful for: a wonderful family, great friends, a good job, and all the comforts I need. I love my church, I love my city, and I'm well represented by my city councilor, senators and congressman.

I hope the rest of you are as blessed as I am. Enjoy your Thanksgiving day!

Reaction

Overall I'm pleased with the results of last night's election.

Mayor Elect Bartlett has my prayers. I'm hopeful that he will do a good job for all of Tulsa. I'll be watching intently.

I'm excited about Preston Doerflinger's win of the auditor's office. We desperately need the approach that he promised during the campaign.

The O.G Roscoe Turner is back! How awesome is that? He is joined by Mautino, the East Side O.G! I'm very very excited about this.

I'm glad to see G.T Bynum has won. I haven't always agreed with the votes he made during his freshman term, but I've found him to be thoughtful and fair.

I'm very upset that prop 2. I place the blame squarely on the Council who made the decision to put this on the ballot.  I spoke with one of the councilors who passed this on to the voters and this is what he said to me, "I don’t really think this is a good idea. But, I got enough comments about it that I thought it should be on the ballot so that folks could vote on it." I can't say how much that frustrates me.

With this one exception, it was a good night.

Vote Tommorw

Don't forget to vote tomorrow.

Here are my endorsements and recommendations.

Mayor: No endorsement.  (I'm going to vote for Bartlett...begrudgingly.  However, I can't say what will actually happen when I step into that "booth")

City Auditor: Preston Doerflinger

Council District 3: Roscoe Turner
Council District 4: No endorsement
Council District 6: Jim Mautino
Council District 9: G.T Bynum


Proposition No. 1: No
“Shall the existing charter of the City of Tulsa, as heretofore amended, be further amended to require that any person filing for and holding the office of City Auditor must be a certified public account or certified internal auditor?” (Yes or No)


Proposition No. 2: NO!!!!!! PLEASE VOTE NO!!!
“Shall the charter of the City of Tulsa be amended to provide that City Councilors will serve for three-year terms, which shall be staggered so that no more than 3 council districts will have an election in any one year?” (Yes or No)

Proposition No. 3: Yes
”Shall the charter of the City of Tulsa be amended to require that before any claim or lawsuit where the demand is equal to or greater than $1 million ($1,000,000) may be settled both the Mayor and the City Council must agree to the settlement?” (Yes or No)

RIP Trusty Laptop

My laptop has finally died.  You may remember the lengths at which I went to keep it alive some months ago. Based on the experience in our office, these ThinkPad T42p(s) all eventually succumb to motherboard failure. Our hypothesis is that repeated heat stress causes the ball grid array that connects the graphics chip to the motherboard to fail, not unlike what causes the XBOX 360 Red Ring of Death.

And so I bid you fair laptop adieu, you have been a trusted companion and friend.

For Bartlett?

Before we go any further let me get this out of the way, I do not endorse Dewey Bartlett Jr. With that said, I think I'm probably going to vote for him despite my overwhelming urge to sit this one out.  I have several problems with Dewey, not the least of which is support and love for Kathy Taylor.  Also, I'm convinced that he will be the same elite mid-town mindset mayor we have always had, and despite his claims, I do not believe he is a conservative.

I heard Chris Medlock, a man who I deeply admire, give a completely unconvincing argument, as to why we should get behind Dewey.  He essentially said that if conservatives don't get behind Dewey then he will have no reason to give us conservatives a place at the table if he is elected.  I'm not sure if he meant to say it or not but what I heard him say is that Dewey is not a real conservative.  If he was, what difference would it make whether or not we got behind him?  Real conservatives are conservatives no matter where the winds are blowing, and a real conservative mayor would have strong conservatives in his cabinet no mater what.  Chris cemented my belief that Bartlett is a  moderate.

That being said, I've heard Dewey say some things that do give me some hope.  He told me he was against at-large councilors, he pledged not to raise taxes, and I've become convinced that he might actually do a better job of getting us through this economic storm than the other candidates.

But truth be told, Tom Adelson scares the crap out of me.  I have an interesting theory that Adelson might actually be good for Tulsa, creating the Obama affect that we are seeing on the national scale.  It may be that an Adelson administration might finally push us toward the kind of mayoral candidate that I've been hoping for all along.  Or at the very least I think that he might be so polarizing with the council that he will accomplish nothing.  While it is an interesting theory, it didn't work with Kathy Taylor, and I quite frankly don't want to risk it. This guy thinks Obama is great, and I simply can't stand the possibility that he might become our next mayor.

Dewey Bartlet's wife Victoria cornered me at the KRMG Mayoral Smashup and asked me to get behind Dewey (I'm kind of scared of her by the way).  I've thought about it, and I've been thinking about it for several weeks.  This might not be the glowing endorsement she was hoping for,  but like I said, this isn't really an endorsement so much as it is a blog post for my readers who are interested in how I'm going to vote and what my thought process has been.

It has been along road for me, starting out  as the guy who categorically rejected the idea that he would ever  vote for Bartlett, to the the guy who has finally decided that he would. Alas, I don't think the road is long enough to take me to the place where I could actually endorse him.  Charlie Biggs sums up my thoughts on the subject best.

Dewey Bartlett might wind up being the best mayor we’ve ever had. But I have serious doubts. He was cozy with Taylor. Bartlett, who was endorsed in the primary by the liberal Tulsa World, has a history of entertaining tax increases and the expansion of government. Bartlett has pledged that he will not raise taxes as mayor or grow government.

My practice has been to take politicians for their word until I find out different. I am not as trusting as I used to be. Too many politicians say one thing during the heat of the campaign and then govern in the opposite direction.

I will not endorse someone that I am not sure about. Even though I am a registered Republican, I am a Christian, an American and a conservative first.

The people who read this newspaper are smart enough (and spiritual enough) to make their own decisions.

I've gone a step further than Biggs to tell you how I'm actually going to vote, however I suspect that the people who read this blog are smart enough (and spiritual enough) to make their own decisions.

KRMG’s Mayoral Smashup

If you missed last night’s Mayoral Smashup, then you really missed out. While you can listen to the event online, I suspect that it will be nowhere near what it was like in person. This was by far the best candidate forum/debate I have ever attended or witnessed.

There were not really any rules with regard to time allotted for responses, order of candidates, or allowances for retorts/responses. This is something I think the candidates did not take full advantage of. The debate, by design, was loose on structure, rules, and formality. Only Independent Mark Perkins figured out, about 3/4ths of the way in, that he could pipe up and challenge the response of his opponents, and in part lead the direction of the conversation.

There were not any rules for the folks in the gallery either; but unlike the candidates, we took full advantage of the freedom we were provided. There where cheers, jeers, and tears from the crowd. Not being a supporter of any candidate provided me the freedom to clap and cheer when a candidate said something I liked, as well as the freedom no shout and boo when they said something that made me mad. It was awesome; I had a great time.

Read more »

Worst Bill Ever

I recently read a Wall Street Journal opinion piece calling Nancy Pelosi's Heath Care bill the Worst Bill Ever.

Mr. Obama rode into office on a wave of "change," but we doubt most voters realized that the change Democrats had in mind was making health care even more expensive and rigid than the status quo. Critics will say we are exaggerating, but we believe it is no stretch to say that Mrs. Pelosi's handiwork ranks with the Smoot-Hawley tariff and FDR's National Industrial Recovery Act as among the worst bills Congress has ever seriously contemplated.

Read more »

Staggered Three-Year Terms #2: Who Benefits?

On November 10th Tulsa citizens will be asked to vote on a charter change proposal that would modify council terms from two to three years and would stagger those terms so that every year three of the nine councilors would be up for election.  Further, for the first three years, the terms for the three sets of three would be 1 year for the first three districts, 2 for the second and 3 for the third.

In my first post we talked about the faulty assertion that this change will protect the continuity of the council.  In review, aside from the first council, there has never been a council will all freshmen members.  This current council has decades of experience and only 2 freshman councilors. I've yet to see a council with out continuity.

So if the benefit is not the continuity of the council, what is the benefit?  Or more precisely who will be the beneficiary of this change? The most important beneficiary of any change in government should be the people.  Unfortunately this charger change doesn't benefit you, it benefits professional campaign managers, and it benefits crummy councilors that need to be voted out of office.

Read more »