Just one more reason I'm glad I got the hell out of D.C.

Camera nabs 788 speeders in 2 days

Affiliated Computer Services of Dallas operates the cameras and goes through the 35-millimeter photographs each day to find violators. Police help ACS by matching license-plate numbers to vehicle registrations and the registered owners' home addresses.

ACS is paid $190,000 a month for the red-light cameras' operation and upkeep and $570,000 a month for the seven speed cameras. The District initially expected to pay ACS a percentage of the fines, but later agreed to pay a flat monthly fee.

Ow.

SCAM CAM by the wholsale lot.

Not to be missed! Mitt Romney showing off John Kerry before and after photos.

Saw mention of this on the Daily Show last night.
Reporters tail Kerry on rare day off

"But a routine trip out on a snowy afternoon by the presumed Democratic nominee quickly turned into a big-time production.

...a gaggle of reporters tailed the senator on his round of errands...
even when he bought a jock strap, among other items, at a local sporting goods shop."

The Scam Cam (An el-cheapo piece of junk, made who knows where, with counterfeit labels) is also sometimes called the Canon CAM 9600.

I guess the scammers keep changing the name to try to stay one step ahead of anybody trying to figure this all out.

If you found this by doing a google search, looking for info on this camera, here's my advice, DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF JUNK.

The scam cam also comes in an "OLEMPIA" version too.

So far as I can tell this ebay auction for a CANON Q8200 is selling what is known to google only as a "truck stop ripoff". I take that to mean that this is a shoddy piece of crap illegally using the Canon trademark on its el-cheapo constructed piece of shit self.

Anyway, I'm just posting this for posterity so future searches for Canon Q8200 disclose this scam.

ADDITIONAL INFO: I found the following rooting around in the Internet Archive.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20030623100912/http://www.truckstopscams.com/

  Well hell.... I didn't realize what was going on until too late! At any rate, I lost $60 bucks on something that I found out only minutes after I purchased it, was a piece of crap. Afterward I wanted to warn as many people as possible. Lately we've been getting a lot of mail from persons after they've bought the camera and then researched it on the 'net. How we wished those people had read this site first.... but there is also mail from those who have called home and had family members, or friends try to find information about the camera before they bought it. The letters from those people validate this site and it's purpose. We're glad to have helped.

• http://web.archive.org/web/20030601193537/www.truckstopscams.com/q8200.htm

  Well, it's a camera - BARELY! The photos are ok, but not even as good as you'd get with a much cheaper point and shoot, or disposable. It probably cost a grand total of $3.00 to manufacture in Singapore and the guy selling them here probably only paid $5 or $10 for it, if that much.

  ... The quality of the product is such that if I were Canon I'd sue the pants off who ever made it.

The Corrections page the NY Times should be writing.

(Courtesy Instapundit.)

Unintentional comedy heard on 104.1 FM from Hartford this morning, discussing the sentencing of one of the people involved in the previous scandal from the Rowland administration.

... will receive a more lenient sentence due to his corruption.

The newsreader paused, searching for corroboration, or perhaps cooperation, but didn't bother to correct the error. I guess I'm not the only one that's foggy at 6:02 AM.

Thank you writer for the suggestion. Six Million Dollar Loan is funnier than Six Million Dollar Mortgage.

I'm going to guess this guy was probably carrying a clipboard...

A couple of items on pricing today.

Mom & Pop Shop on the Web

Sometimes on ebay you happen across a a seller who just doesn't seem to understand the concept of ebay being the perfect marketplace because it facilitates sales with low transaction costs at a price determined by the bidding process. Often I see items listed with minimum bids far above market value, only to see it later relisted for less, then less still and less yet again. In the end the seller would have made more money, and avoided excess ebay fees by simply listing with a low mininum price and letting the bidding process set a fair sell price.

But the seller listed above, "camera$" (whose name might ought to be "camera$$$$") seems to have a price in mind for what its goods are worth and is holding out to find someone willing to pay a price. Looking over his auction listing history shows a conversion rate that seems to be under 10%.

I wonder how many inventory turns you get with a system like this? How productive is money spent on ebay advertising items at a price only a boutique shop in a rich neighborhood can support? Is the seller looking to make money or simply brag about his inventory over the web.

Strange also is that this seller runs every auction as a private auction. Aruably this is to protect the identity of people who might have expensive collections at home, though I suppose someone might see this as a shield against its pigeonscustomers from being told of their over-market purchases.

I suppose maybe, if the seller finally lowers prices to a point where a sale can be made, this might work on unique, or very hard to find items, if only due to the coveting of and lusting for the unobtainable (in price) becoming a sales incentive for the buyer once the price drops to a reasonable level. Ebay does let you relist for free, but only if it didn't sell the first time and it does sell the second time. The third time you pay again, and the cycle repeats like the second.

Overall, though, I think the competition of bidding often pushes prices to higher than they would be if the bidding starts so highly that not many participants want to join in the bidding. Bidding becomes a competition and bidders become attached to items, presumptively buying the item before the final winner is determined. Also, a quick way to find possible diamond-in-the-rough items on ebay is to look for items that have a lot of bids on them, letting other shoppers "vote" on what they think is/was available at a bargain price.

More Expensive by the Dozen

I noticed the other day that my local Subway sells cookies according to the following price schedule

• One Cookie for $0.39 each.
• Three cookies for $1.00 for three.
• Twelve cookies for $4.29 per dozen.

Ummm, I'll take nine cookies. Oh, and three more please.

Mmmmmm, cookies.

UPDATE: Tuba Boy correctly points out that, should I actually want a dozen cookies, I should order three cookies, three more cookies, three more cookies & three more cookies.

John Kerry, candidate. A man barely afloat. Gentlemen, we can
refinance him. We have the technology. We have the capability to
build the world's first botox president. John Kerry will be that man.
More boring than he was before. Meaner, jerkier, liberaler.

From the Daily news
Psycho's kin saw it coming
"The brother said he begged doctors at Weill Cornell Medical Center not to release Quelal Feb. 19, following 17 days of treatment. After he was sprung, Quelal blew up his medication in a microwave"

Given the recent disclosure of Senator Edwards exploiting a Corporate tax shelter to avoid (maybe evade) $290,000 in Medicare taxes I guess I'm not surprised that he doesn't include such scams in his official websites' Fact Sheet: Fighting Abusive Corporate Tax Shelters.

Maybe he defines corporate tax shelters as abusive only when they're not used to shelter his own income.

The Case Against the Case Against Martha Stewart

After an exchange of blog posts, University of Iowa law professor Tung Yin convinced me that the government's allegations, if proven beyond a reasonable doubt, constitute a technical (arguably hyper-technical) violation of those provisions. Even so, as a matter of sound prosecutorial discretion, those claims never should have been brought.
...
Even if the key witnesses were credible, however, the obstruction and false statement charges are pretty pathetic. We have here a case in which is the government flung allegations at Stewart, which they ended up deciding not to charge her with. The government then prosecuted Stewart for having denied the very same allegations the government decided it couldn't prove.