I’ve commented on the inanity of CCTV cameras making their debut in Pittsburgh. Well, apparently several cameras are going to be put into place in the North Side.

“Safety is a priority in my district, and I thought cameras could be another tool for those communities,” said Pittsburgh City Councilwoman Darlene Harris.

Harris said she hopes one day all neighborhoods will have those tools.

The question is how effective will these cameras be?  I doubt they’ll be effective it all and just drive the unwanted elements / crime elsewhere in the North Side or to other parts of the city. How have CCTV cameras fared in, say, London - which has 10,000 cameras in its “Ring of Steel”?

“Only 3% of street robberies in London were solved using CCTV images, despite the fact that Britain has more security cameras than any other country in Europe.”

3%?  Just 3%?  They have 10,000 cameras.  Wonderful.  Another dog and pony show by the Pittsburgh administration which is going to cost the tax payer more money without seeing much benefit. (Just a note: this money is coming from Homeland “Security” not local taxes, but it is a “use it or lose it” type fund.  Just like the tunnel being drilled under the Allegheny).

Is this what is in store for Pittsburgh?  Oh, it’s going to be a talking point for how Ravenstahl and Co. took a bite out of crime.  Granted, Pittsburgh is not London, but what is a handful of camera’s going to do when 10,000 seem to be ineffective?

“Use of CCTV images for court evidence has so far been very poor, according to Detective Chief Inspector Mick Neville, the officer in charge of the Metropolitan police unit. “CCTV was originally seen as a preventative measure,” Neville told the Security Document World Conference in London. “Billions of pounds has been spent on kit, but no thought has gone into how the police are going to use the images and how they will be used in court. It’s been an utter fiasco: only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV. There’s no fear of CCTV.”

Ah well, most people won’t care as long as it seems they are doing something.  Which in this case they’re really just spending money to do nothing.  It’s unfortunate that there are not other options (like increasing Police presence in troubled areas) that can be employed.

Someone asked what happened to the Post-Gazette Campaign Watch. Originally designed to keep track of who was getting more press in the Post-Gazette, Clinton or Obama, the Campaign Watch was derailed as the articles seemed to drift from the campaign of the Democratic candidates and start focusing instead on the recess activities of  Pittsburgh elementary schools.

T. Nowicki

Post-Gazette writers O’Toole, Carpenter and others seemed to haunt the playgrounds and designate kids as either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama and use their sound bytes as fodder for their articles. I no longer had any idea if I was reading an article about the candidates or a letter home to the parents of school kids.

This phenomenon was not localized only to Pittsburgh. The New York Times and Washington Post seemed to have plants in day care centers, waiting with tape recorders running to catch the latest wave of childish insults thrown; mistaking five-year olds for the presidential candidates.

Confused as to what exactly was going on, I decided to stop reading about the childish banter.  You’d think if the Post-Gazette could write about the Pittsburgh Pirates in a positive light, they might be able to do the same with the Democratic candidates, but I digress.

Too many articles written allowed the all-too-common game of “let’s quote the other out of context and make them sound like a monster” to continue and present it to the lazy, common person who is more likely to act like a sheep instead of researching things for themselves.  The majority of those who do research for themselves probably do not have the mental capacity to extrapolate what is going on in the campaign.  They instead fall victim and tell their friends / whoever will listen a sound byte that is taken out of context and used for their own nefarious purposes to further their own agenda.  Hence the vicious cycle of political banter.

It only took nine days for this project to reach its critical mass of idiocy.  Thank you, mainstream media.

Late edit:  Thank you Hillary Clinton for acting like a first grader throughout your campaign as well.  You, yes, you, Hillary have made it painful to watch.