The World Around You

Here are my results from the the SelectSmart.com 2004 AMERICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE SELECTOR quiz. I got interesting results.

1. Kucinich, Cong. Dennis, OH - Democrat (100%)
2. Dean, Gov. Howard, VT - Democrat (76%)
3. Sharpton, Reverend Al - Democrat (73%)
4. Kerry, Senator John, MA - Democrat (58%)
5. Gephardt, Cong. Dick, MO - Democrat (56%)
6. Edwards, Senator John, NC - Democrat (51%)
7. Libertarian Candidate (50%)
8. Moseley-Braun, Former Senator Carol IL - Democrat (49%)
9. Lieberman Senator Joe CT - Democrat (47%)
10. Graham, Senator Bob, FL - Democrat (30%)
11. Phillips, Howard - Constitution (27%)
12. Bush, George W. - US President (20%)
13. LaRouche, Lyndon H. Jr. - Democrat (-12%)

Eliminate those who have no chance of being elected (Kucinich, Sharpton, Moseley-Braun, etc.), and it’s just about right. I can’t strongly support any candidate right now, though I did vote in the MoveOn.org online primary.

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It’s nice to be appreciated. I got BEST OF SHOW and a 5.0 (Exceptional) from Tiger in his review of the New Blog Showcase. Thanks Tiger!

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Check out this discussion I am having with Del at Freespeech.com.

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The best written tribute to the late great Katherine Hepburn I have seen is at the Hollywood Reporter.

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There’s a wonderful editorial today in the Mobile Register on the opposition of some Christians to the Harry Potter series.

Why are the faithful today afraid to engage culture in creative and transforming dialogue?

The impulse to ban, condemn and silence the competition certainly comes from a position of power the church holds today, but it seems to reflect an inherent insecurity. It’s almost as if church leaders are afraid the Gospel can’t compete in the marketplace of ideas.

BINGO!!! Give this editorial writer a prize. The fear that the Gospel can’t compete is an overshadowing presence in the church today. With all the problems we face in the world today, what possible reason is there to attack something which has brought millions of children (and adults) back to the joy of reading.

It certainly raises an interesting point. Our world is marked by greed, violence and hatred. Our country is wracked by fear and divided by racism. The poor in our midst are despised and neglected while the rich get tax cuts.

In the face of such obvious evil, why spend our time and energy trying to discredit and silence Harry Potter? Instead of condemning Harry, maybe we should learn courage from him to name as evil what apparently we are afraid to speak.

Fear should not be the basis for religious belief, nor should the spreading of fear be a focus of our daily spiritual lives.

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Steve at The Daily Kos gives a handy reference to crafting counter-arguments when you get pinned into a conversation with a Bush supporter.

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Wizbang has moved, but Kevin is still as generous as always.

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The Mobile Register opinion page raises a question that I would like to open up for debate. What is the appropriate role of the judiciary? The Register contends:

We join the majority of Americans in believing that a perfect Constitution might explicitly recognize at least some realm of protected privacy within a home, beyond existing guarantees against unwarranted search and seizure. We also believe that legislatures have better things to do than to regulate such private consensual conduct.

But for the U.S. Supreme Court to rely on unspecified transcendencies, and on foreign governmental bodies, in order to force legislatures to be sensible, is for the court to turn the American constitutional order upside down.

Is the Constitution just explicit words or is there a spirit of the law as well?

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I have entered the Truth Laid Bear’s New Weblog Showcase. Please vote here

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Well, it has certainly been a slow blogging day. On a personal note, we were informed today that my workplace will have the joy of experiencing an independent study of the organization over the next few months. You know the drill, efficiency experts looking at the organizational structure, analyzing employee’s job descriptions and duties.

Sounds like fun doesn’t it? Certainly great news to receive heading into the weekend!

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The SAFRR Guestbook is once again available. Please do post to it!

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Very ironic that this story appeared on thesmokinggun.com just three weeks ago. Check out the actual coverage of Thurmond’s death on the same website: J. Strom Thurmond Dies.

Be prepared, that’s what I always say.

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Just as I’m about to go to bed, this comes across the wire, Ex-S.C. Sen. Strom Thurmond dies at 100

Sen. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, a one-time Democratic segregationist who helped fuel the rise of the modern conservative Republican Party in the South, died Thursday. He was 100 and the longest-serving senator in history.

Thurmond died at 9:45 p.m., his son Strom Thurmond Jr. said. He had been living in a newly renovated wing of a hospital in his hometown of Edgefield since he returned to the state from Washington earlier this year.

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As I suspected, my post has been removed, and I think my IP has been blocked by the SAFRR website. Typical!

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Just in case SAFRR choose to remove my post here it is: WHEREAS most Alabamians are not going to pay more in taxes under the Governor’s plan. WHEREAS the information you link to from Governing.com indicates that the amount of Revenue Alabama brings in is woefully inadequate and the tax system is extremely unfair. WHEREAS the Governor’s plan eliminates the income tax on those least able to pay it. WHEREAS the federal government continues to put new mandates on the states with no money to fund them, especially in education, and the states are forced to generate the funds themselves. WHEREAS there is no other plan that will balance the budget based on current revenues without dramatically harming the citizens of Alabama. I do hereby support the plan passed by the Alabama Legislature and urge all Alabama citizens to do the same.

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Please post to the Guestbook of the South Alabamians for Real Reform. They are one of the leading opposition groups in the state and were written up in today’s Mobile Register.

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Once again, if you are in support of the Governor’s plan it might be a good idea to show up at one of these meetings to make your opinion known: CSE to Hold Organizational Meetings.

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The Birmingham News is starting to connect the dots in the case against former Governor Siegelman: Siegelman got a trailer same day Young bought one.

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Great story on Bob Riley and the tax plan on CBS Evening News. The correpsondent emphasizes the “Christian” reasoning behind shifting the tax burden off the poor. I’m always pleased to see Alabama get national press for something at least arguably positive.

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Check out James’ latest caption contest at OTB

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A K-Mart manager was bitten by a woman who he caught shoplifting in Decatur. I guess that will move the danger level of a job as K-mart manager up the scale a little.

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PETA did the right thing in bringing attention to the outrageous action of the Mayor of Gainsville, Alabama. She should be prosecuted for abandonment. It’s one thing to work to solve a problem. It is quite another to dump a problem on a neighboring jurisdiction.

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What is my take on the Governor not signing the felon voting rights bill(Riley says he never agreed to sign felon bill )? I wish he wouldn’t have done it. The bill was not going to radically alter the system that is in place and he is going to take more flack for not signing it than he would have for signing it.

However, he had every right to veto it. A fact that many Democrats in the legislature have obviously forgotten. Even if there was a deal to pass the bills together, the Governor’s signature was not part of that deal. Any deal the Legislature makes is separate from what the Executive Branch does.

It’s also extremely disingenous to start calling the Governor a “racist” as Alvin Holmes has done over this action (not that anyone listens to Alvin). If the Governor is racist why would you be willing to work with him on anything? You should be fighting him every step of the way if that is what you believe in your heart. Of course, no one believes the Governor is racist because he wouldn’t sign this bill, but the term will get thrown around for political effect.

The pocket veto of this bill is unfortunate, not for what could have been accomplished, but for the sour taste it will leave in many voter’s mouths when they go to the polls on September 9th.

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Most Alabama Board of Education members appear ready to ignore federal law and not notify parents whether their child’s teacher is highly qualified under new standards.

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Thank goodness one of the major Alabama papers has finally highlighted the fact that with the federal tax reduction, most Alabamians will still see a net reduction in taxes even with the Governor’s tax and accountability package in place. The Birmingham News reports:

Almost all married couples and most households with children are projected to get money back, since both the state and federal tax plans increase exemptions and deductions.

The net effect on Alabama taxpayers results from two factors: the greater size of the federal tax reductions and the fact that the Riley plan’s higher state property and income taxes can be deducted when calculating federal income taxes.

“The net cost will be zero to the vast majority of taxpayers, and they’ll be making a huge investment in the state,” said PARCA’s executive director, Jim Williams.

Riley’s spokesman, Pepper Bryars, said the federal income tax reductions provide an opportunity for Alabamians to invest in critical state services, with the federal government replacing the money that would have been taken out of the economy via increases in state taxes.

“What Alabama can do is invest in vital services without drawing additional money out of its citizens’ pockets,” Bryars said. “This is going to be critical to getting people to support the referendum.”

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The latest Washington Post-ABC News Poll reveals the following interesting tidbit:

The survey also suggests that the fog of war extended far beyond the Iraq battlefield. About one in four Americans incorrectly believes Iraq used chemical or biological weapons against U.S. forces during the conflict. Slightly more than six in 10 said Iraq had not, while the remainder weren’t sure.

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James summarizes his take on the U of M decisions based on my challenge of his opinion.

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James at OTB says,

Yep: States can discriminate on account of race as long as they are well intentioned and don’t use numbers to do it. Essentially, this is just a restatement of Powell’s murky lone opinion in Bakke but one that gives a stamp of approval to a specific program.

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Bill Barrow reports in the Mobile Register this morning:

In a sign of continuing discord among Alabama Republicans, former state party Chairman Roger McConnell of Mobile has called a public meeting for Saturday to organize grass-roots opposition to Gov. Bob Riley’s $1.2 billion tax and education reform plan.

“This tax, the largest tax increase in history, is diametrically opposed, it’s on the other end of the spectrum, from what we try to promote: less taxes, less regulation, less government,” McConnell told the Mobile Register in a telephone interview Monday.

“We’re going to do everything we can to try to defeat it” Sept. 9, when a statewide referendum will be held, he added.

McConnell said he is footing the bill to rent a ballroom at Montgomery’s Embassy Suites Hotel from 1 to 4 p.m. Saturday. The meeting is open to “anyone in the state” and will feature a host of speakers opposed to the plan. Among them: John Giles, president of the Christian Coalition of Alabama, and a tax lawyer and a certified public accountant, both of whom McConnell declined to name.

The Mobile businessman did not say how much he planned to spend, though he promised the meeting will be the first of “many” similar events.

The involvement of the state Republican Party in this “grassroots” effort is also something that needs to be monitored.

McConnell is one of several past state party chairmen to publicly oppose the plan, and local party committees in Mobile, Blount and Madison counties, among others, have adopted resolutions against the idea.

McConnell said Saturday’s meeting is not an official party function. But it was announced in a June 22 e-mail newsletter distributed by Hugh McInnish of Madison County, a member of the state GOP executive committee, to local and state Republican Party leaders and elected officials around Alabama. The gathering, McInnish wrote, will be held “to discuss plans to counter the $1.2 billion tax plan the liberal wing of the Party is attempting to pass.”

State GOP Chairman Marty Connors confirmed Monday that he was familiar with McInnish’s newsletter, but said he had not read the June 22 edition.

The supporters of the plan need to be at this meeting to have their voices heard as well. John Giles and Roger McConnell need to know that this is not going to be an easy road. I plan on at least stopping by on Saturday. Who’s with me?

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The Birmingham News reports this morning:

A former top aide to Gov. Don Siegelman will plead guilty in federal court today to charges that he accepted bribes in exchange for state business, including a failed state warehouse project, his attorney said.

Nick Bailey, a member of Siegelman’s cabinet, will plead guilty to two counts of conspiracy to commit bribery, one count of failure to report $19,000 in income and one count of violating state ethics law, his attorney, George Beck, said Monday.

The charges stem from the warehouse project and other state deals between 1996 and 2002. Federal charges also have been filed against two other central figures in the warehouse project, Montgomery businessman and lobbyist Lanny Young and Montgomery architect Curtis Kirsch.

Kirsch also will plead guilty today to one count of violating the federal bribery law by conspiring to give money or a thing of value to Bailey and of violating the state ethics law, said Kirsch’s lawyer, David Byrne.

Efforts to reach Young’s lawyer about whether he will enter a plea were unsuccessful.

Charges against the three men resulted from a state-federal investigation of contracts awarded to GH Construction, a fledging company that was politically connected during the Siegelman administration, to build two warehouses in Montgomery.

Prosecutors accuse Bailey of accepting cash and loans from Kirsch and Young.

“They allege that over a period of years that Nick Bailey performed services and used his influence in government to help Lanny Young get favored treatment from the state of Alabama and Curtis Kirsch to get architectural service fee contracts with the state of Alabama,” Beck said.

“In entering this plea, Mr. Bailey intends to fully cooperate with law enforcement authorities and that he’s pleading guilty because he feels like he is guilty, he used bad errors of judgment, and he crossed the line. … He is going to place himself at the mercy of the court and work to get this part of his life behind him,” Beck said.

This was probably the worst kept secret in the state. Everyone was expecting this to come down soon after the Siegelman administration left office. What is interesting is the “full cooperation”. Could the former Governor be the next be indicted? Stay tuned.

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I apologize for continually changing the appearance. I got rid of the wallpaper, slowed the load time too much.

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Check out the latest caption contest at Outside the Beltway.

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The Supreme Court has ruled in the University of Michigan affirmative action cases (Court limits race as factor in admissions). The court made the right decision. The point system was wrong, but there is a compelling government interest in diversity in education. I’m sure the dissents are strong and I look forward to reading them, but it’s comforting that the decision was split and no suprise that Justice O’Connor once again made the difference.

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The Montgomery Advertiser uses the release of disappointing national assessment scores in reading as an opportunity to push the Governor’s tax and accountability package.

It is no accident that the tax and accountability plan put forward by Gov. Bob Riley focuses on three areas that, we believe, could greatly impact reading scores, and all of them are connected to teachers.

The first would be the expansion of the Alabama Reading Initiative into all of the state’s schools. At the heart of the ARI is the requirement for teachers to go through an intensive training course during the summer on the best methods for teaching reading.

The second is dramatically improving the amount of continuing education and training that teachers receive. Alabama is among the worst states in the nation in spending on training to expand and maintain a teacher’s skills once he or she enters the classroom.

And finally, Riley’s plan would reform teacher tenure laws to make it easier and faster to get non-performing teachers out of the classroom.

Alabama’s leaders have known for years what needs to be done, but none of them have had the courage to do it. Until now.

So if you understand how Alabama government works, you also can understand how this state has come to have both a nationally recognized reading program and poor readers. It is not really a mystery, but it is a tragedy.

The counter-argument I have heard the most is that this package violates “conservative principles” of smaller government. Let’s follow this line of logic (or lack thereof). If you make government smaller at all costs, what responsibilities of the government would you like to eliminate? Should we close the public schools? the universities? community colleges? job training programs(say goodbye to Hyundai and Mercedes)? the prisons? the mental health facilities? eliminate meals on wheels? fire the state troopers? stop investigating cases of child abuse? close down the state courts? stop maintaining the roads?

The average citizen may not miss many of these services until they are not there. Maybe we should just start from scratch, let’s start with a clean slate and start a list of all the services that federal, state and local government should perform. You would notice if the state highways were in disrepair. You would notice if criminals were not caught, tried or punished for their crimes. How small is small enough?

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The Birmingham News published another of my Letters to the Editor, entitled State Punishing Good Teachers:

I am deeply distressed by the way the state Department of Education has handled the “highly qualified teacher” provisions of the No Child Left Behind Act. I deal with this legislation on a daily basis, and the department has drastically misinterpreted the law’s requirements.

I thank the state Board of Education for questioning the plan and hope its members will craft something that meets the requirements of the law, but does not go out of its way to punish good teachers and confuse the public.

There should be flexibility in the definition to give teachers time to meet the requirements outlined; a lot of good teachers are going to be deemed not “highly qualified” based on only one or two college courses.

Most important, Alabama should follow South Carolina and other states in meeting the parental notification requirement by making information about teachers’ qualifications available to parents. All parents in the state should get a letter, advising them of their right under the law to see the teachers’ qualifications. This is not in dispute.

There is no requirement to send a letter to the parents of each and every student whose teacher is not “highly qualified,” informing them of this fact. Why the Department of Education insists on going beyond the letter of the law is baffling.

The intent of the law was not to panic parents, but for the state to make progress toward ensuring every child has a qualified teacher in the classroom.

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Steve Gilliard pulls together some assessments on the progress in Iraq from several newspapers and begins to draw conclusions.

The reason this is happening comes from two decisions driven by Donald Rumsfeld, a desire for an American-dominated victory and the refusal to fully plan for the occupation of Iraq. These two decisions have lead to the current mess in Iraq.

Rumsfeld and his PNAC buddies wanted an American victory in the war on terrorism. The fact that Iraq was not actively attacking the US was irrelevant. So the quest for allies was a short, cosmetic one. They wanted to eliminate Saddam and show the rest of the region that US power was to be feared. Well, it didn’t work out that way.

The latest buzz is that, once again, we may have killed Saddam, but frankly, he’s no longer relevant to this discussion. Even if he was directing a guerrilla war, the Kurds and Shia would prevent his return to power, by force of arms if necessary. So the idea that he’s hiding in the shadows and waiting to come back to his palaces is a pipe dream.

An interesting analysis, but saying Sadaam is no longer relevant is jumping a bit overboard. Sadaam is relevant so far as his ultimate fate is concerned, not for the reality of his possible return, but for the mythical hero he could become.

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This is such a cool tool! I saw it on Chris Pirillo’s site and just had to try it out on mine. Just click on the Speak button under any post and the At&T Naturally Speaking tool will read the post to you. Two warnings:
1) It gives up when it gets to quote marks and stops.
2) It only reads the first 49 words.

Try it out!

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The London Observer reports in their Sunday edition that a missile strike was conducted on a convoy that “firm” information indicated included Sadaam and one of his sons.

American specialists were carrying out DNA tests last night on human remains believed by US military sources to be those of Saddam Hussein and one of his sons, The Observer can reveal.
The remains were retrieved from a convoy of vehicles struck last week by US forces following ‘firm’ information that the former Iraqi leader and members of his family were travelling in the Western Desert near Syria.

Military sources told The Observer that the strikes, involving an undisclosed number of Hellfire missiles, were launched against the convoy last Wednesday after the interception of a satellite telephone conversation involving either Saddam or his sons.

The operation, which has not yet been disclosed by the Pentagon, involved the United States air force and ground troops of the Third Armoured Cavalry Regiment based around Ramadi, a major town 70 miles west of Baghdad.

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