tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1769659900634709753.post-6780122365463555462008-02-12T08:39:00.000-05:002008-02-12T08:39:00.000-05:002008-02-12T08:39:00.000-05:00<B>Aaron</B> - <BR/><BR/><I>Seriously dude, calm the hell down. It's called a joke.</I><BR/><BR/>Really, what if I suggested that the reason that cops make so little is that those paying them assume they are on the take and/or earning enough doing private security on the side with their "GovCo"-issued uniforms and patrol cars? You would be all up in arms in all of your ex-cop glory with soliloquies of unreadable length. However, it would be easy enough for me to refer to the myriad of instances of police - in this country - abusing their powers and involving themselves in activities ranging from the ethically shady to the outright illegal.<BR/><BR/>It would be wrong for me to do that; because I would be besmirching the service of legions of public servants to capitalize on the well-publicized fall of a scant fraction of that population. Which is exactly what you did with that comment.<BR/><BR/>The issue is the people you're talking about are your neighbors. I know it's chic for the intellectually lazy to dismiss all elected officials as "a bunch of crooks"; but <A HREF="http://cabarruscheapseats.com/blog/2008/02/04/privette-remains-his-journey-to-fool-the-public-part-1-of-2/" REL="nofollow">as I've found out recently</A> - it's not too hard to uncover inconsistencies when they exist.<BR/><BR/>Those of us who bother to do the research earn the right to castigate our officials when there's proof of wrongdoing. Other than that, the vast majority of our local elected officials are doing more for the community than you are.<BR/><BR/>Specific to the Allied Waste situation - for a Commissioner to be on the take: it would require the cooperation of an untold number of people to secure what is really a small profit. And that brings me to...<BR/><BR/><B>Thierry</B> - Again, I didn't expect you to take the wager or to really understand why I offered it to you in the first place; because this situation is not about pollution - it's about government making a choice for people where they shouldn't have.<BR/><BR/>If selling the recyclables were really worth it, than Allied Waste would simply sort out the trash as it comes to the dump. Or, if they were socially minded, they would create a program to let indigents do the sorting themselves in a sort of 21st-century, weak-dollar gleaning operation.<BR/><BR/>The reason you won't start your own, local recycling business is that same reason that Allied Waste charged what they charged to provide recycling. It's basically a second garbage run. Your issue that someone else should pay for YOUR service goes to show you what happens when government - at any level - meddles where the markets could most likely create a solution that would be better and tick fewer people off.Justin Thibaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08372004100442741119noreply@blogger.com