Cal Elections and a Waste of Time

[furtech]

This ballot may contend for "least inspiring ever". Considering the cost of this election and our state's deficit the process feels like dangerous waste of money. The propositions sound ridiculous to me: half of them say force the gov't to save more; the other half tells them to spend more. That's like telling people they -must- save to have a 12% savings buffer, while at the same time telling them they'll have to pay more for services and, oh, you're also getting a pay cut. What's the point of all this verbiage and law if it is impossible to enact or enforce?

Here in L.A. the city attorney's office is up for grabs between a crook and a ineffectual wimp (for the top L.A. law enforcement office!). I was leaning towards the ineffectual wimp until one of his bile-ads made an idiotic statement: [(Weiss) ineffectual wimp ad] "Trutanich even called the ban against murderous .50-caliber ammunition 'ridiculous.' "

First, that was taken out of context (the "ridiculous" was referring to local bans on ammunition-- Trutanich feels they should be pressing for state-wide bans). Second, Weiss' proposal to ban the "murderous" .50cal BMG is idiotic at the base. I can't remember a single "murder" in California where a 50BMG was used. It's a round rarely used by ordinary people and the guns that can fire them cost thousands of dollars and are heavier than a 7th grader's backpack!

I might buy a lot of BS in political ads because I just don't know better-- but the second a candidate says something that is patently false or misleading leads me to question ALL of his ads.

All of that being said, GO VOTE!

Comments

[slave-to-anime.livejournal.com]

Meh, I've seen worse. Like elections where the only thing on my ballot was a bunch of school district superintendents or such, where I'm pretty much screwed on trying to find out information. It's also the one time in recent memory where I didn't go to vote, because I simply could not form a reasonable opinion of any of the candidates. Civic responsibility be damned.

I admit I don't like this set of propositions much either. They aren't inspiring. That said, given what's on the table, these are arguably at least more directly impactful than, say, giving chickens bigger cages. And it's not the level of inspiration of a proposition that should drive whether one should vote on it or not; personal effect is more important.

... .50 caliber? Yeah, obviously, that would've had to have been taken out of context. No kidding that's not a round regularly used by ordinary people, and realistically probably shouldn't be in the hands of ordinary people. Wasn't Dirty Harry's legendary revolver a .44 magnum? And that thing was ridiculous as is!

[furtech.livejournal.com]

True, we've had school board elections, too-- but at least the LAUSD is so huge that incredible politics form around even those elections (recently it was the Mayor vs. the Union=Drahma!).

The ironic thing about the chicken cage proposition is that given an open area, they'll beat the crap out of each other (with a very high mortality/crippling rate!). The cages are for their protection from each other.

There are two kinds of .50cal (the name just refers to the width of the bullet). The "consumer" .50cal AE used in guns like the Desert Eagle and is just a bigger, fatter 44-mag round (about .06 inches wider); the .50cal refered to in the ads is a .50cal BMG (12.7 X 99 mm-- about the size of a Sharpie pen) and is really a military round. In either case, they're not often used in a "murderous" way, both because they cost a lot (both guns and bullets--a dollar or more per round) and because they kick like hell (hard to control). Most people get one to out-man the other shooters.

[slave-to-anime.livejournal.com]

See, you get it lucky over there. Our school board elections are BORING.

Well, they're still single cages for birds. Though I'd be amused by chicken fights across an egg farm. :P

Yeah, I can't imagine that being a particularly practical bullet, except maybe in some sort of high powered rifle. And regardless, it would be silly for any politician to straight up say that banning such a bullet would be ridiculous without also probably having the position that outlawing guns of any sort would be ridiculous. And obviously neither candidate is in favor of that position.

[furtech.livejournal.com]

I just want them to break up the LAUSD: it's bigger than most city governments! There is a LOT of waste due to the bureaucracy's size, and the union is very powerful and they and the mayor are playing chicken.

Speaking of chicken, if they did have huge commercial egg farms without the cages, there would probably be periodic riots that would make Attica look like a deb ball!

The 50AE is almost exclusively a macho-bullet: to show who has the bigger gun. The recoil is fierce and that makes second shots almost impossible; plus the guns only hold 6-7 bullets (as opposed to a 9mm, which can hold almost twenty). There are very few circumstances where a 50AE would be better than a number of other rounds.

Ironically, before smokeless powder (particularly in the 1800's), the most common caliber was .50-- but that's with black powder. The large size and long barrels of the rifles meant that it still had a lot of punch and a long accuracy range. Big bullets!