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Digital text and images via shortwave broadcasting

Tuning into short-wave radio can be a varied listening experience sometimes. There are people who are nuts, uncanny numbers stations, and some really interesting broadcasts that can be heard. I discovered one of the later while searching the SW band. Not knowing what the strange sounds I was hearing were, I soon found out. 

VOA Radiogram is a Voice of America program experimenting with digital text and images via shortwave broadcasting. It is produced and presented by Dr. Kim Andrew Elliott.

Anyone who thinks short-wave radio is dead is not listening.

(c) Trevor Dailey

Red light camera not about road safety

Red light cameras are promoted by the municipalities that install them as a road safety measure. It is claimed these red light cameras reduce the number of motorists who intentionally drive through red traffic lights by catching them with a photograph, and then a fine of $300 or $400 is sent to the driver. 

According the laws of the road (Ontario Highway Traffic Act), an amber light means the driver is to stop if it is safe to do so. If it is not safe to do so, then the motorist is permitted to continue only with caution. Failure to stop at an amber light if it is safe to do so is a $150 fine (408). A red light means the motorist must come to a stop. Most drivers who run red lights do so because the driver fails to stop at an amber light, not because it is not safe to do so, but because the driver does not want to wait at a red light. Failure to stop at a red light is a $260 fine (412).

In the City Of London, Ontario, there are approximately ten intersections with newly installed red light cameras. The cost of operating each of these cameras is around $50,000 per year. Where does this money come from? Municipal property taxes. Everyone who must pay property tax is forced to pay for the red light cameras indefinitely. The fines are just added to the revenue stream because the red light cameras are already being paid for by people not breaking any law. There is therefore no reason to make sure these red light cameras are doing what they are supposed to do to for the cost it is to operate them.   

According to those proponents of the red light camera, it is a safety issue. They say, red light camera prevents drivers from running red lights, and because of this, it prevents collisions of motor vehicles in intersections. They present many inconclusive studies. It is claimed there are hundreds of these kinds of motor vehicle collisions in the city each year, and these preventable collisions sap resources from taxpayer funded city emergency services. Traffic lights already have a safety feature to prevent intersection collisions caused by motorists not stopping at an amber light. There is a delay of a couple of seconds before a red light changes to green. For this time, all traffic at the intersection is stopped at a red light. If red light cameras really was a safety issue, then the red light ticket would mean something.

If a motorist is caught with a red light camera, a ticket is sent not necessarily to the driver of the vehicle, but to the registered owner of the vehicle. There is no establishment of the identity of the driver, as is the case when a police officer pulls over a driver he or she witnessed failing to stop at a red light. The officer checks the identity of the driver with a driver’s licence check. The red light camera checks the identity of the vehicle by photographing the vehicle's licence plate.  A red light camera ticket is no more of a problem than a parking ticket. No demerit points are lost. No rise in the driver’s insurance rate. It is nothing but a municipal fine that most people will pay because fighting it in court is not worth it. Failure to stop at a red light is a serious offence, in my opinion, but red light cameras are not there for safety. I say the red light cameras are nothing more than revenue generators for spend thrift municipalities.

(c) Trevor Dailey

Vaughan man beats $325 red light camera ticket in court

Minimum wage and coffee

There is a local automotive service garage that likes to put commentary on their shop sign. Currently the sign reads:

"Raise minimum wage and just watch the price of coffee."

The implication of the sign is that when minimum wage rises employers will increase the cost of goods and services to pay for the increase. In this case, the price of a cup of coffee is supposed to increase with minimum wage, supposedly causing annoyance to the coffee customer. This is one of those times when a person just does not understand what he or she is talking about. The price of coffee may or may not go up because of minimum wage, but the number of unemployed will.

If serving coffee is not worth $15.00 per hour, then few employers are going to pay for it. It is not a matter of the customer paying a higher price for a cup of coffee, or anything else, and then getting used to it. Either employers will cut the number of employees they have, or they will increase the workload of the employees they have to get $15.00 per hour worth of work from them. In other cases, they may replace a human with a machine, or a computer. What is certain is employeers will not hire the young, the inexperienced, and the unskilled at a high rate of pay. The kinds of people who desperately need employment will be shut out of the job market.  

Minumum wage is nothing more than government price fixing in the ecomomy. When minimum wage goes up, the only ones who benefits is the government by forcing people into a higher tax bracket so the government can steal more tax off one’s paycheque, and the Unions who use the government's minimum wage law to keep cheaper wages from competing with high union wages.

As someone who works a minimum wage job, I can not say this enough: end the minimum wage law now!

(c) Trevor Dailey

Just Right Media (Audio)

21:39 Muddled minimum middle thinking

34:10 : Maximum denial behind minimum wages

33:58 Minimum­ thinking Conservatives

From Minimum Wages To The Wages Of Sin