It’s wrong to base spending on dirt
Dirt has no soul. It does not hunger. It is without memory. Its meaning is no more than we assign.
Urban Fellow Peter Bluestone, a researcher at Georgia State University’s Andrew Young School of Policy Studies, has brought forth an exhaustive study that should probably be the last of its kind funded with public money.
“Claims have been made,” he notes, “regarding the potential geographic imbalance between the revenues generated in an area and the public expenditures received.” His research, therefore, is an “attempt to document these flows.”
To what purpose?
That is clear. To establish conclusively and finally that metro Atlanta is entitled to more state money. This is, after all, the dirt that accounts for 61 percent of state revenues, while it receives 47 percent.
Those 28 counties — metro Atlanta as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau — hold 54 percent of Georgia’s population. The counties run from Bartow and Pickens on the north, out to Newton and Walton on the east, to Spalding and Meriwether on the south, to Carroll and Haralson on the west.
Bluestone’s research is superb and the data rich. It establishes conclusively, for example, that voters are being hoodwinked by those who push local-option sales taxes with the premise that up to 40 percent to 45 percent of the burden will be borne by visitors. Bluestone’s finding is that in metro Atlanta “out-of-state and out-of-region visitor spending did not significantly affect sales tax collections in fiscal year 2004,” the data-year studied.
The research will undoubtedly be employed by the special pleaders to make the case that metro Atlanta does not get its “fair share” of the state’s bounty. It is, instead, research that should put to rest forevermore the notion that the governor and the Georgia General Assembly should fragment the state into regions, each with proportional entitlements and claims on the state treasury.
This is the research effort that should make it clear to Gov. Sonny Perdue, to legislators and to future leaders of Georgia that their obligation is to reunite Georgia into one and to develop public policies that serve people as they choose to live and where they choose to live. One pending issue is transportation.
Without question, Georgia needs to have a statewide plan without provisions contained in Senate Resolution 44 that would allow regional options for a 1-cent sales tax. It should be one plan for one state, connected top to bottom, with one statewide sales tax, as proposed in House Resolution 206.
The research, for whatever political purposes it might be used, does raise the question of whether the state’s obligation is to serve dirt or people. Yes, metro Atlanta disproportionately pays. But metro Atlanta disproportionately earns. It’s not the dirt that pays or earns.
The 54 percent of Georgians who live in metro Atlanta account for 66 percent of the $6.2 billion in personal income tax paid. We didn’t pay more because of geography, nor did a high-income earner in Valdosta or Toccoa pay less. They simply chose to live in different places.
House Majority Leader Jerry Keen (R-St. Simons Island) thinks that any attempt to set public policy based on a link between revenues generated and expenditures received “doesn’t work based on any size” county or groupings of counties. “Even within a single county, one portion of the population pays more than another,” he said. “I hear these arguments all the time. Show me one place where the exact amount you pay is the amount that you get back.”
As for the proposed constitutional amendment that would allow regional local-option sales taxes, Keen said, “The only one in the state that would benefit from a regional tax is metro Atlanta. I venture to say that no other county would ever do it.”
The fact that metro Atlanta generates a greater share of the state’s revenues does not mean that the state has any greater obligation to Atlanta-area government and institutions. The small hospital in the Southwest Georgia town of Arlington, Calhoun Memorial, has lost money for the past five years. Its moral claim to state funds, if available, is no less than those of Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta, because its people are poorer or because their earth lies below less economic activity.
The same is true of education funding. While schools in metro Atlanta have access to greater local property tax revenues, the state’s obligation is not to the governments that run them, but to the children. Each child, regardless of where he lives, should have a fixed sum, a voucher, that legislators determine is sufficient to buy a decent education. If the county can’t or won’t provide it, the child’s parents should have it to buy elsewhere.
It’s not dirt. It’s people.
Responsible policy-making doesn’t mean the state is obligated to equalize lifestyle and opportunities, regardless of the choices individuals make. Making it “just good enough” so that people in poverty won’t move from where they can’t find jobs to where they can is honoring dirt while disserving people.
The legislator’s job is to weigh what’s best for the entire state and to legislate accordingly.
Neither the residents of Arlington nor those in metro Atlanta are entitled by virtue of the dirt they occupy.
Dirt does not breathe. It does not carry virtue for the prosperity nor responsibility for the poverty that occurs above it. It does not bear shame for the injustices perpetuated there, nor does it memorialize poverty because it was once covered by pockets of it.
It’s dirt.
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90 comments Add your comment
findawg
March 14th, 2009
9:47 am
Hall County is lining up its sixth pay by the penny proposition to provide funding for basic public services. They have yet to complete, or even start, all that was promised in phase five. The country bumpkins have learned well from their metropolitan cousins. The outsiders will help pay for the schools and roads we need. The poor and the illegals will finally pay their share for the government that serves us all. And should this proposal fail we will be consigned to gridlock with ignorant children because we were too cheap to give just one percent more on our daily purchases. We could not enforce our own development laws and have the A-List developer’s pay for the public improvements that enrich them; especially when they happen to be the county commissioners and their large land-owning families…
Ga Values
March 14th, 2009
10:09 am
I really don’t understand what your point is.
Big Bucks GOP
March 14th, 2009
10:39 am
By John Feehery, worked for the House Republican leadership from 1989 to 2005. He is the founder of The Feehery Group, a strategic advocacy firm, and blogs at http://www.thefeeherytheory.com.
“I was talking to a Republican mayor of a fairly large city in the southern part of the United States, and the subject of earmarks came up. He was a big fan. “It is a lot easier for me to get the attention of my local congressman than it is to get the attention of a bureaucrat here in Washington.”
And that is the fundamental conundrum of the Republican attack on the earmarking process.
Lots of Republicans not only love earmarks, they rely on earmarks to get the attention of an indifferent and sometimes hostile bureaucracy.
Getting rid of earmarks is not only impractical; it gives way too much power to the executive branch.
Earmarks are a small, but essential, price to pay to protect democracy and our form of representative government.
Our nation’s founders bestowed upon Congress the power of the purse as a reaction to the absolute power of King George and his fellow monarchs. But what good is the power of the purse without the right to actually direct some of the spending of the president.
Undoubtedly, Congress has abused their power to spend the people’s money, and unfortunately, corruption has become all too commonplace.
But the reaction to this corruption should not be the wholesale abdication of power to an all-powerful executive.
Rather, Congress should reform its spending ways to rebuild the taxpayer’s trust in the process.
First, it should insist on transparency. Last-minute deals to add special little projects, all to buy votes, should be prohibited.
Second, it should insist that the committee of jurisdiction authorize all appropriated projects. The authorization process should be revitalized to give each and every spending request the scrutiny it deserves.
Third, no member should be given the power to be able to both authorize and appropriate spending projects. The temptation is simply too great when members have that much power to spend taxpayers dollars.
Fourth, the Congress should use an outside accrediting agency (perhaps GAO or the CBO) to give a seal of approval that the spending requests are in the national interest, and not just in the parochial or private interest of the requesting member.
Of course, earmarking is not something that happens only with the Appropriations Committee. The Transportation Committee (because of the unique way it spends money from its various trust funds) and the Ways and Means Committee (tax provisions) also have been known to compel the bureaucracy to do things it might not normally do.
All of that is completely appropriate when it is done in the national interest. It is completely inappropriate when done at the behest and for the private benefit of a special interest.
That the earmarking process needs reform is obvious. But reforming earmarks will not suddenly make Congress fiscally responsible. In fact, as has often been mentioned before, earmarks made up only a tiny percentage of total spending in the budget. And the Congress can take out every earmark, dedicate those savings to deficit reduction, and still not make even a minor dent in the huge budget problems that face the nation.
But that doesn’t mean that reform of the earmark process is unimportant. The people have lost faith in the Congress because it has spent like a drunken sailor for far too long, on projects – like the infamous Bridge to Nowhere – that don’t pass the laugh test. If Congress can come up with a process on earmarks that can help restore faith in the institution, by insisting on transparency, on a vigorous authorization process, on a dispersal of power, and on outside accreditation for all spending, it will be in a better position to tackle the truly big spending issue of the next 30 years, the dangerous growth of entitlement spending.
Republicans like John McCain and John Boehner are right to shine a spotlight on the broken congressional spending system. But the answer is to fix that system, not give all the power to spend to President Obama.
A lot of Republican mayors, county executives and governors don’t want to just rely on the good graces of an Obama administration, no matter how much they might like the president. They are relying on congressional Republicans to help with their spending requests. It is neither good politics nor good policy to ignore those requests and give all the power to the executive branch to do with the money as they see fit.”
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
11:02 am
GA Values: you have a hard time understanding the point of this?
‘“Claims have been made,” he notes, “regarding the potential geographic imbalance between the revenues generated in an area and the public expenditures received.” His research, therefore, is an “attempt to document these flows.” To what purpose? That is clear. To establish conclusively and finally that metro Atlanta is entitled to more state money. This is, after all, the dirt that accounts for 61 percent of state revenues, while it receives 47 percent. Those 28 counties — metro Atlanta as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau — hold 54 percent of Georgia’s population.’
Seems pretty clear to me.
Let’s take the first quote to the local level within Atlanta:
“Claims have been made,” he notes, “regarding the potential geographic imbalance between the revenues generated in an area and the public expenditures received.”
That would be those in north Fulton, and specifically, those living in areas like Vinings, West Paces Ferry, and unicorporated areas of north Fulton who have already or are working on being incorporated like Johns Creek & Milton (and yes, their incorporation and separation from Fulton County gubment being “racist” has been duly noted). I can’t speak for roads in the latter two, but I do know that roads and Fulton County police patrols in and around Vinings and West Paces Ferry SUCK. Where is all that tax property money from those gazillionaire homes going?
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
11:25 am
You just have to love this. Oklahoma, if memory serves me correctly, was once home to Obama’s mother and grandmother. (Side note: watching the libtards drool over Bristol Palin having broken up with Levi Johnston is very entertaining – our current president’s mother was an unwed teen mom). Anyway, on to the news. This, from the libs at the Washington ComPost of all places. That’s right Mr. “Bring Change To Washington!” Blame Bush when the reality of being a president sits in:
By Scott Wilson
updated 4:51 a.m. ET, Sat., March. 14, 2009
“In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
“It hasn’t taken long for the recriminations to return — or for the Obama administration to begin talking about the unwelcome “inheritance” of its predecessor.”
“Over the past month, Obama has reminded the public at every turn that he is facing problems “inherited” from the Bush administration, using increasingly bracing language to describe the challenges his administration is up against. The “deepening economic crisis” that the president described six days after taking office became “a big mess” in remarks this month to graduating police cadets in Columbus, Ohio.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Hey Nancy, someone left a message stating that the swamp you drained is rising again. LOL.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Oh but wait, didn’t the OH TEAM state earlier this week that the economy isn’t as bad as it is being reported?
Why yes my child, they DID:
Mar 12 05:49 PM US/Eastern
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer
“WASHINGTON (AP) – Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and his plans will speed recovery.”
“Challenged to provide encouragement as the nation’s “confidence builder in chief,” Obama said Americans shouldn’t be whipsawed by bursts of either bad or good news and he was “highly optimistic” about the long term.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
No, you cannot make up this kind of schizophrenia. GREAT JOB AMERICA!!!!
Idiots.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
11:31 am
Has anyone else noticed the schizophrenia of the Obama administration?
Exhibit A:
By Scott Wilson – Washington Post
updated 4:51 a.m. ET, Sat., March. 14, 2009
In his inaugural address, President Obama proclaimed “an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas that for far too long have strangled our politics.”
Obama has strengthened his rhetoric gradually. Thomas E. Mann, a senior fellow at the liberal-leaning Brookings Institution, said the administration’s “sharpened language is a response to the Republican argument against Obama based on huge deficits and big spending.”
Six days after taking office, Obama kicked off an event on jobs, energy reform and climate change with “a few words about the deepening economic crisis that we’ve inherited.” He lamented announced job cuts at such economic mainstays as Microsoft, Intel, Home Depot and Caterpillar, among others.
Just over a week later, Obama, arguing for his stimulus plan, said that “we’ve inherited a terrible mess,” and a few days after that, in the economically depressed city of Elkhart, Ind., he told the audience, “We’ve inherited an economic crisis as deep and dire as any since the Great Depression.”
Exhibit B:
Mar 12 05:49 PM US/Eastern
By JIM KUHNHENN
Associated Press Writer
“WASHINGTON (AP) – Confronting misgivings, even in his own party, President Barack Obama mounted a stout defense of his blueprint to overhaul the economy Thursday, declaring the national crisis is “not as bad as we think” and his plans will speed recovery.”
No, you cannot make this kind of stuff up, and don’t look to the libtard media like CNN’s “No Bias, No Bull” laugh-in.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
11:33 am
Oops, I meant to only post one of those two posts above, not both. Oh well, the truth never lies.
Jackie
March 14th, 2009
12:17 pm
@Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg
Obama’s mother was not a teenage mom. She was married to Obama’s father in Hawaii.
As for Bristol Palin, a vast majority of the “liberals” do not take issue with Bristol, but with the Repubs using her to further their cynical case.
President Obama should make everyone aware of what was passed by the Repubs and Dubya. Obviously there is a big desire for the public to have a major bout of amnesia.
catlady
March 14th, 2009
12:47 pm
Sarah Palin: You can’t be proclaiming against stealing when your own hand is in the cookie jar. And to use an unfortunate decision by your child to try to further your own standing is dispicable. Her son (he is off to war! Forget why he had to join up), her daugher (she WILL be marrying the boy. And notice, she DIDN”T get an abortion. ‘Cause we are all about “family values”), and her youngest son (See, I didn’t abort him!) All that seems so cynical to me. If you claim the higher ground, you need to be sure you can stand on it.
findawg, are you still under the misunderstanding that there are any folks, other than monks and the dead, who DON”T pay property tax directly or indirectly? And that there is a special line at Walmart for the illegals so they don’t have to pay sales tax? And that those working for businesses don’t have income tax withheld? And that it is the WHITE MAN who hires them under the table?
Personally, I just voted against an extension of the SPLOST. I think Board members should have to explain and justify their decisions to the electorate, rather than having the candy bag open for their hands. And I am not at all happy with the use made of money on other splosts. SPLOSTS help elected officials stay elected. I say, let them run on their records.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
12:59 pm
“Obama’s mother was not a teenage mom. She was married to Obama’s father in Hawaii.”
Jackie: thanks for proving my point of how mindless and emotion-driven you liberals are.
A quick review of FACTS is in order here, as usual when dealing with a libtard. Here is what I posted:
“(Side note: watching the libtards drool over Bristol Palin having broken up with Levi Johnston is very entertaining – our current president’s mother was an unwed teen mom).”
Moonbat: she got pregnant while not married as a teen. That is a fact. Exactly what part of that FACT do you libtards not understand? But unlike you moonbats, I’m not holding that against her. Her son turned out quite well, albeit I don’t agree with just about everything that comes out of his teleprompter-driven mouth…
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
1:09 pm
More:
Amanda Ripley reported in Time magazine: “On Feb. 2, 1961, several months after they met, Obama’s parents got married in Maui, according to divorce records. It was a Thursday. At that point, Ann was three months pregnant with Barack Obama II . . .
“The motivations behind the marriage remain a mystery, even to Obama. ‘I never probed my mother about the details. Did they decide to get married because she was already pregnant? Or did he propose to her in the traditional, formal way?’ Obama wonders. ‘I suppose, had she not passed away, I would have asked more.’”
Barack Obama Sr. left Ann and their son in 1963, and she married Lolo Soetoro, the presidential candidate’s stepfather, in 1967.
Source:
Time Magazine
Okay, I retract my comment: an unwed teenage conceptual mother. The point here is that the libtards are having a heyday over Bristol’s break up. Period end of story.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
1:14 pm
On to more important news. Let’s see if the libtards at the DNC media will start squawking about THESE jobs going overseas under Obama’s watch (my wild off-the-wall guess is HELL NO – more “change” we can believe in, folks):
JPMorgan Chase to Increase India Outsourcing 25%
America’s second-largest bank plans to spend $400 million on work outsourced to India to streamline its IT operations
By Pankaj Mishra
Businessweek
Economic Times of India March 9, 2009, 7:47AM EST
America’s second-largest bank plans to spend $400 million on work outsourced to India to streamline its IT operations
The second-biggest bank of the US, JP Morgan Chase, which acquired Washington Mutual and Bear Stearns recently, will increase its outsourcing to India by 25% this year to nearly $400 million. It will also manage the integration of the acquired companies from India to bring down the cost of integrating different information technology (IT) systems.
Right now, JP Morgan outsources $250-300 million worth of IT and back-office projects every year to Cognizant, TCS and Accenture, apart from to its own captive centre in Mumbai.
“JP Morgan CIO Guy Chiarello said last week that he will increase outsourcing to India, and will drive several integration projects from there,” a New York-based expert, familiar with JP Morgan’s outsourcing plans, told ET last week, on conditions of anonymity. A spokeswoman for JP Morgan India could not reply to an email query sent by ET on Friday, and the bank’s spokesperson in the US too did not reply.
“JP Morgan is one of the first banks in the US to have fleshed out its outsourcing
strategy ever since the banking meltdown happened. Many others are still undecided about their IT spend,” said a senior official at one of the technology firms, who did not wish to be quoted.
The bank, which cancelled its $5-billion outsourcing contract with IBM in 2004—following the merger with Bank One—had brought back around 4,000 IT staff in-house after the new CIO Austin Adams had proposed a “do-it-yourself” strategy for the merged entity.
“In this economic environment, Mr. Chiarello, the current CIO, wants to ensure that he helps JP Morgan meet cost-reduction goals,” the expert added. With large global banks like Lloyds TSB and HBOS, and Bank of America & Merrill Lynch merging, India’s top tech firms, including Infosys, TCS and Cognizant, are bidding for at least three $100 million-plus contracts.
As these banks merge, they face a huge task of integrating their software applications, consolidating their data centres and other trading platforms into a single entity, so that their customers are able to transact without having to face any merger-related issues. And since offshoring will help them save costs by 30-40%, these merged banking entities are seeking to partner with a vendor having significant offshore presence. “Apart from looking at cost-saving opportunities, such as offshore outsourcing, these banks also want to partner with their existing vendors because they would know the systems better,” said a consultant on condition of anonymity.
As reported by ET recently, Lloyds TSB—which merged with HBOS—is seeking partners to help the merged entity integrate its retail and wholesale banking systems through an IT platform. The company has already outsourced its HR functions to Xansa two years ago, in a five-year deal.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
1:19 pm
Oh wait, I’m not done yet! More “change” we can believe in folks! Let’s see, this time, it’s the “change” of the arrogant Bush administration who thumbed his nose at foreign nations and Obama was going to fix that. Well, here’s your fix, Obamabots:
From Times Online
March 10, 2009
Cabinet chief lambasts ‘incredibly difficult’ Obama team over G20
Britain’s most senior civil servant has complained that Downing Street is finding it “unbelievably difficult” to make arrangements with the United States for the crucial G20 summit.
Sir Gus O’Donnell, the Cabinet Secretary, reportedly said that the handover to the Obama Administration was hindering discussions about the meeting in London next month.
The Prime Minister hopes that the summit on April 2 will produce a co-ordinated global strategy to tackle the economic downturn.
So far, his attempts to get his Washington and European allies to agree to a coherent common platform for the meeting have proved frustrating.
The G20 nations, which represent about 90 per cent of world economic activity, include not only the traditional G7 members but the European Union and emerging economic powers such as China and Brazil.
Mr O’Donnell said that No 10 was having trouble even getting in touch with key personnel at the US Treasury department. “There is nobody there,” he told a civil service conference in Gateshead. “You cannot believe how difficult it is.”
His comments come after Downing Street was left frustrated by the White House’s chaotic handling of Gordon Brown’s visit last week. No 10 aides were left scrambling when the President’s staff changed press arrangements at the 11th hour.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
1:21 pm
“No 10 aides were left scrambling when the President’s staff changed press arrangements at the 11th hour.”
Heh. I guess those teleprompters were having technical difficulties……
Jackie
March 14th, 2009
2:04 pm
@Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg
As usual, you so-called conservatives try to extrapolate, obfuscate and issue plain BS when you get your knickers in a knot.
You stated clearly that Barack Obama’s mother was not married to his father.
Secondly, she was not a teen, but a graduate student in Hawaii. I think that would put her past the age of 21, don’t you think SLOW MOTION?
Secondly, you have the right to disagree with anything you choose, but, someone like you should be careful with what direction they choose as it appears you have been led down the primrose path only to find that all the other sheep had jumped off the cliff.
The teleprompter being used by the President is readily available to you, if you choose to run for office and is somehow elected. Care to try?
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
3:26 pm
Look who’s all upset at a menial point on Obama. Jackie! Go figure with all the other FAILURES of the current administration.
“You stated clearly that Barack Obama’s mother was not married to his father.
Secondly, she was not a teen, but a graduate student in Hawaii. I think that would put her past the age of 21, don’t you think SLOW MOTION?”
I stated that Obama’s mother was an UNWED TEEN MOTHER – at the time – which I restated and corrected. I backed that up by a Time magazine report. Now, whether or not you libtards want to define the definition of “mother” or not is not up to me. Me, personally? I find a pregnant woman a MOTHER of said unborn child. But, if you libtards want to split hairs on technicalities, knock yourselves out.
“you have been led down the primrose path only to find that all the other sheep had jumped off the cliff.”
Maybe you missed that part where the OH TEAM has received a GRADE F!!!!!! for handling the economic situation. And sheep? Please. Don’t lecture us on sheep falling off a cliff after the election last year, moonbat.
“The teleprompter being used by the President is readily available to you,”
Any idiot can speak publicly with constant teleprompters in front of him. The difference is Obama depends on them and when he gets caught off guard, it shows.
Next…
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
3:31 pm
And ANOTHER point on Obama: why is information on his background SO. HARD. TO FIND?
For Jackie the libtard: The internet is your friend, you mindless hysterical liberal MOONBAT:
“Obama Sr. eventually told Ann about his first marriage in Kenya, but said he was divorced, which she would find out years later was not true.[19] Dunham was three months pregnant at the time of her marriage.[1][3] On August 4, 1961, at age 18, she gave birth to her first child, Barack Obama II.[20]“
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
3:39 pm
Yeah that’s right, Nanny Pelosi, you drained that swamp well with that broom of yours…
March 13, 2009 – 6:20am
FBI raid at the office of D.C.\’s Chief Technology Officer.
Mark Segraves, WTOP Radio
WASHINGTON – An employee of the D.C. Office of the Chief Technology Officer and a private contractor were charged with corruption Thursday after an FBI raid at the former office of one of President Obama’s appointees, Vivek Kundra.
Kundra is on leave from his White House job until further details of the case become known, a White House source tells the Associated Press. Kundra has not been linked to Thursday’s raid. Yusuf Acar, 40, acting chief security officer of the D.C. Office of the CTO, was charged with bribery of a public official, money laundering, wire fraud and conflict of interest.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
3:43 pm
Earmarks for the Kennedy legacy. Huh. Will there be a display of a sunken car with a dead intern in these earmarks? Are these the same type of taxpayer funds that libtards b*tched about Reagan & Bush I over for legacy acknowledgment? Yeah, thought so.
BOSTON – More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys.
The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.
The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy’s mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project.
Glenn
March 14th, 2009
4:31 pm
This is an elegantly written and well considered column, Jim. For my money it ranks with your best.
As you know, I have qualms with Georgia’s pursuit of the Quality Education Model, the so-called “adequacy model”. It is simplistic to think that we could arrive at a dollar figure that would pay for an “adequate” education for every child; moreover, I doubt that the Governor and General Assembly, or any of their consiglieri, could do it. Oregon failed to do it credibly. So did California.
When Leland Stanford opened his university, he insisted that it be operated tuition-free and that its enrollment be limited to destitute males. One of his trustees, a fellow robber baron, remarked that the plan constituted “throwing a four thousand dollar education after a four-dollar boy”. Some pupils cost four dollars to educate; others, four thousand.
In the rural counties transportation costs — big bus fleets — run necessarily high. In relatively impoverished areas, the feds backfill big chunks of school funding with categorical programs, with AFDC and free and reduced-price meal programs. In troubled urban districts it’s often necessary to increase teachers’ salaries to attract and retain good frontline educators. On a somewhat subtler note, it seems ludicrous to bill taxpayers to teach literacy to privileged suburban children who come to school already knowing the basics. Costs do vary according to what happens above the dirt. More importantly, they vary according to what happens within the individual human mind and heart.
Your second educational point, a call for vouchers based on the adequacy model, is I’m afraid equally simplistic. I laud your objectives and your tenacity, however, so let me try a tangent on you.
How about issuing each pupil an educational credit card, redeemable at qualifying points of service delivery? The card could be loaded up, or not, according to the individual’s education needs and progress. Believe it or not, the mag strips on the back of our actual credit cards contain a great deal of surplus memory capacity: they are capable of holding a good deal of data. Were pupils issued such cards, the cards could contain information on the student’s individual learning plan, on her academic progress and history. Students dislocated from a given educational setting — students who move for reasons ranging from intra-district transfer to disaster evacuation — then could rely upon the card for a measure of educational continuity.
Does that sound promising?
Glenn
March 14th, 2009
4:50 pm
findog,
I take Jim’s point to be that we’d be better served were the leaders to take us on a path of border-to-border, comprehensive statewide finance and planning that would knit Georgia together in a way that the current hub-and-spoke model does not (Metro being the hub).
Glenn
March 14th, 2009
4:54 pm
As for infrastructure planning, I’d still like to learn what General Sherman had in mind. He’d cared as much about Georgia’s reconstruction as MacArthur did about Japan’s; he was a superb engineer and logistician; and he was an expert in transportation, once Georgia’s strong suit. I’ve always construed things historically, and have found it useful, at least to people of my bent, to begin with a specific historical context and to move forward from there, so as to learn how we arrived at this pass.
@@
March 14th, 2009
5:39 pm
I’ve been over here on four separate occasions, Jim…..every time I’m reading something between the furrows that makes me laugh. Maybe it’s just me suffering from cabin fever.
Anyhoosiers, equal disbursement? All planting should occur after Good Friday….or so say the old plowers.
@@
March 14th, 2009
6:49 pm
Off-topic!
Uh Oh! The Pakistani Interior Ministry has warned Sharif of an impending threat to his life. Granted, this could be to discourage his appearance at protests against the PPL but Prime Minister Gilani immediately ordered “foolproof” protection to Sharif.
Even so, the threat that jihadist groups might assassinate top political figures is very real — and the implications thereof are very grave.
The jihadists have an interest in creating anarchy, and there is no better way to do this than by killing political leaders — especially leaders like Sharif, despite his reluctance to take a tough stand against the jihadist insurgency. After Bhutto’s death, Sharif became Pakistan’s only leader of national prominence.
Assassinating Sharif would trigger riots, especially in Punjab, his home province and the largest province in the country. The resulting chaos could help the jihadists expand their insurgency from the Pashtun areas in the tribal belt and the NWFP to Punjab, which is close to the South Asian country’s troubled northwest and home to its own brand of jihadist groups that enjoy a significant social support base. Security in Punjab going the way of the country’s Pashtun areas would represent a significant blow to the cohesion of the Pakistani state, and a significant security threat to neighboring India.
Yikes!
Sunshine
March 14th, 2009
8:27 pm
Jim;
Yep a statewide approach is needed badly. Too bad that for 7 years now and now doubt it will be 8 years, that Georgia has done very little to improve the transportation system of the state. Meanwhile other states have poured many into transportation recognizing the beneficial economic impacts and the consequence of a better life for their citizens. Meanwhile Metro Atlanta is now known for its transportation gridlock and less than desirable place to locate a business. The focus seems to stay on issues of morality, which although important providing only a guide to conduct our affairs in good stead, it does not create markets and will not help Georgia compete in a world economy.
Kamchak
March 14th, 2009
8:49 pm
“Claims have been made regarding the potential geographic imbalance between the revenues generated in an area and the public expenditure received…attempt to document these flows…out-of-state and out-of-region visitor spending did not significantly affect sales tax collections in fiscal year 2004.”
Mr. Wooten: You quote two and a half sentences of “an exhaustive (what about this study exhausted you?) study” that you offer no link to. What is clear to me, using only what you quoted from the study, is that Mr. Bluestone is attempting to address “claims” (who made these “claims”? Does he identify these claimants? If he does why don’t you cite them?) of imbalances. What is not clear to me is the motive “to establish conclusively and finally that metro Atlanta is entitled to more state revenue” that you ascribe to Mr. Bluestone. This may well be his motive, but that isn’t clear to me without having read the study in its’ entirety. Mr. Wooten, you also make claims that this study is funded by public money (is this supposed to be a bad thing? Public money being used to find out where public money is being spent sounds better to me than contracting it out to a for-profit company with possible conflicts of interest with competing clients). Again you make these claims with no substantiation.
“Bluestone’s research is superb and the data rich. It establishes conclusively, for example, that the voters are being hoodwinked by those who push local option sales taxes…” Is “hoodwinked” the word he used in his study or are you putting words in his mouth? Again, the two and a half sentences you quote from this study establishes no such conclusion.
The only conclusion that I can make is that you are using this study for another reactionary claim of OH MY GOD! I cannot BELIEVE what THEY are doing to US now. This talk radio (us good, them bad) mindset has framed debate in this country for thirty years. For thirty years voices have been marginalized, villified, demonized and its owners have been called godless, secular-humanist traitors. One of the changes that our new president brings is hopefully a change in the frame of the debate, where we can disagree with civility.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 14th, 2009
9:00 pm
“One of the changes that our new president brings is hopefully a change in the frame of the debate, where we can disagree with civility.”
Moonbat libtard: we’ve listened to 8 years of hatred from you mindless hysterics on the left. Payback is in order. Get used to it.
Eleanor Rigby
March 14th, 2009
9:59 pm
To: Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg,
Just wanted to let you know the Fulton County Police Department only patrols areas in their jurisdiction. Their jurisdiction in unincorporated Fulton County. There are no unincorporated areas north of I-20 or in the city of Atlanta. So, it would seem it’s your local police department’s patrol that suck. You may want to contact your mayor. Thank you.
Kamchak
March 14th, 2009
10:27 pm
@ Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg:
Thirty years of a binary program has left you in a perpetual state of prepubescence. I quit playing cowboys and indians when I got my first pair of long pants.
Chris Broe
March 15th, 2009
12:37 am
CNN just reported that the piece of space debris that almost took out the space station was actually an Iraqi Shoe. The man should get three years for this. Who are those guys?
Diceman was fired by Donald Trump.
Bill Shipp
March 15th, 2009
6:01 am
Did I hear somebody say “change?” The word is too mild. Try “train wreck,” if you are a Republican. “A new beginning” may fit your feelings better – if you voted Democratic in the last presidential election.
In either case, I have the feeling our political nation is about to be turned upside down. President Barack Obama has drawn up a national to-do list that may require an administration of miracle-makers to accomplish.
The country is on the edge of owing a horrendous debt created by the Democrats to rescue us from the economic chaos of the previous GOP presidential administration.
Workers in the steel mills and auto plants of America may feel a faint hope. After years of decline, American-made cars and steel could be poised to bounce back on the strength of a bailout.
If you’re from the Midwest, you may feel a rush of opportunity springing from the energy crisis. Vehicles fueled with the equivalent of corn liquor could save us from the oil barons.
The great universities of New England and California may be free to enter a new era of scientific research that will propel America to the head of the line in healing and preventing diseases.
It may take a year or two to determine whether the new dreams for this democracy can materialize: whether we can make better cars and more money, whether we can teach our kids to be as smart as the Chinese or Indians, whether innovation and creativity still are bywords.
And it may take a year or two to determine whether the American South can bounce back as the region of new dreams and endeavors. Scanning voter statistics from the last election, one would have to conclude the South of 2009 is in about the same position as it was in 1929: running short on leaders and long on dopes.
Unless Obama’s scenario for the future changes dramatically, the South is not going to play much of a role in the reinvigoration of a nation.
Few Southerners and almost no Georgians have been tapped for leadership roles in the Obama administration. That is hardly surprising. Obama drew relatively few votes from Georgia and other Old Confederate states. America may have shown it was ready for a black president.
The South, and especially Georgia, demonstrated it was not ready for a Barack Obama.
In the early days of his administration, Obama signed an executive order rescinding President Bush’s restrictions on using public funds for stem cell research. Before the ink was dry on the order, Georgia’s Republican leaders drafted a proposal to prevent government-funded stem cell research in the Peach State.
So much for the dreams. Georgia’s best minds once had envisioned Georgia and much of the South as leaders in stem cell research.
We forgot an old axiom: In the South, when scientific findings clash with Deuteronomy, Deuteronomy always wins.
In much of the country, the election of Obama as president is regarded as our most remarkable political outcome in years.
In the South, however, the “most remarkable” certificate went to the Republican Party. Overnight, the Grand Old Party turned into little more than a regional organization with a one-word motto, “No!” Many of the same Republicans who constructed the trillion-dollar national debt in just six years are now staunchly on the side of frugality.
At least one Georgia Republican left an indelible mark in our history books. Rep./Dr. Phil Gingrey sharply criticized radio talk-show host Rush Limbaugh for publicly hoping Obama would fail as president. Then a panicky Dr. Phil, realizing he had taken issue with the GOP’s generalissimo, hastily apologized.
At press time, a duel for the Republican crown appeared to be shaping up between Limbaugh and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is credited with coining the phrase, “Kill all Democrats.”
Back in Atlanta, remnants of the old Republican Party shook their heads in disbelief. Georgia Republicans had not been viewed as such political oddballs since moderate Republican challenger Newt Gingrich of Carrollton ran against incumbent Democratic Congressman Jack Flynt of Griffin back in the mid-1970s, and lost in a landslide.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
7:02 am
@@,
Seriously, would you please strive to make your more muscular comments, which comments you might make a mite less adorably?
Yes, and I’m quite sorry. But it’s rather distracting.
All of which is to say: there’s something about your intelligent naturalness that makes your writings unusually honest, immediate, heart-engaging. Please, my friend, you really ought to launch a blog. (Like you really need another hassle.)
Redneck Convert
March 15th, 2009
7:22 am
Well, Wooten got it 100% Right. Us people that don’t want to tax ourselfs more deserve the tax money that the rich libruls in the Atlanta area make. It’s not our fault they are better schooled and make alot more money than we do. Me, I think we need to go back to the old county unit system to make sure the Atlanta libruls don’t start taking more of their money back and cause us to tax ourselfs more to pay for the things we want.
We need the good roads and the schools and other stuff that makes our life good out here in the country. But we sure don’t want to have to pay for all of it. So it’s OK to put our hand in some rich Atlanta librul’s pocket and let them pick up some of the tab. Far as we’re concerned, this is one case where Socialism’s good. We can take from the rich people in Atlanta that pay alot of taxes and keep more of what we make ourselfs. That way we can keep guvmint small. But Socialism don’t work in any other case.
So I say if you’ve got them down then stomp them some more. I love to read about how people in the Atlanta area vote to tax theirselfs more to get what they want. That just means I get more of what I want too without having to pay for it. The state will see to it Atlanta libruls don’t get to keep all the tax money they pay. That means my taxes stay low and they pay three times as much. Serves them right.
Have a good day everybody.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
8:03 am
Thank you Eleanor for the information on Fulton County’s patrols. So, back to my original point, why are residents in north Fulton County paying the same tax rate as someone who lives in another part of Fulton County who have sheriff department patrols? Seems like your typical taxation without representation to me.
Kamchak: I know you libtards get upset when someone trashes your party of moonbats in Washington (extreme hypocritical ones at that), but it is not Bush’s fault that every time Dems open their forked tongue mouths the stock market falls. Since the Nanny and cohorts took over Congress in 2007, the Dow has dropped by HALF. Since the election last November alone when the bad news that Obama won, the Dow has dropped 22%.
Now you can call that cowboys and indians playing like some mindless snotty nosed whining five year old, but I call it a serious amount of lost money under a Democrat congress’s watch and more recently, a Democrat president’s watch. The evil rich in this nation so reviled by the loonbat left have lost half their wealth. I’d like to know how the neo-Marxist Dem party is going to tax just them for their Utopian socialist causes. And congratulations on your long pants, but perhaps they are on too loose – either that, or the fat went from your belly to your head when you decided to vote Democrat with the rest of the children.
Big Bucks GOP
March 15th, 2009
8:03 am
Those wackos in the Georgia Legislature made the New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/14/us/politics/14stem.html?ref=politics
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
8:16 am
To Mr. Shipp:
“And it may take a year or two to determine whether the American South can bounce back as the region of new dreams and endeavors. Scanning voter statistics from the last election, one would have to conclude the South of 2009 is in about the same position as it was in 1929: running short on leaders and long on dopes.”
Funny. I still continue to see northeastern liberals moving down here in droves from their former socialist liberal run (and taxed to hell) areas like New Jersey; I still continue to see Detroitans them move down here to find automobile and manufacturing jobs that disappeared in Michigan; I still see Californians move here where the Democrat-run state (and don’t give me that Arnold runs the state BS – state congress makes the laws, rules, and regulations) have taxed that state to hell and back so hard people can hardly afford to live there and corporations and LLCs are leaving like a stampede of buffalo. Now what was your point again?
“Unless Obama’s scenario for the future changes dramatically, the South is not going to play much of a role in the reinvigoration of a nation.”
See above.
“Few Southerners and almost no Georgians have been tapped for leadership roles in the Obama administration. That is hardly surprising. Obama drew relatively few votes from Georgia and other Old Confederate states. America may have shown it was ready for a black president. The South, and especially Georgia, demonstrated it was not ready for a Barack Obama.”
That is the most ridiculous, but not unsurprising, comment that is so typical of libtards from the Dimocrat party. Is the South rejecting Michael Steele? Did the South reject Colin Powell under Bush I? Did the South reject Condi Rice and Clarence Thomas under Bush II? The answer is no, no, no and NO! People with mentalities like that still stuck on stupid circa-1960s stigma of the South are the ones behind the times. Maybe – and I’m going way out on a limb to say this – but maybe some can’t comprehend that Southerners are CONSERVATIVE by nature and have major, MAJOR problems voting for a liberal Democrat. Further, over the course of the last 20 years or so, why are many if not most of the racist news stories coming out of areas other than the South? Here, see this most recent example from NEW YAWK:
03/03/09 06:48 AM
Falls police say woman put up racist sign
NIAGARA FALLS—Two days after a man was sentenced to probation and community service for putting up a sign as a “joke” in a public works garage that said “whites only” on a drinking fountain, city police were called to a home in the 600 block of 25th Street on Sunday to investigate another racially charged sign.
This one was clearly no joke.
No charges were filed Sunday, but police told the woman she must take down the handwritten sign on a fence on her property saying, “I rent three bedrooms [at her address to] white people Niagara Falls.”
The 53-year-old woman told police she put up the sign after someone tried to break into her house and added, “I can do what I want. I live in America,” according to a police report.
Police said they received complaints and she must take the sign down. An officer at the scene said the woman agreed to take down the sign under protest. The officer said the woman already had seven more signs she was planning to hang up.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
8:24 am
Finally, Mr. Shipp, we Southerners will not stand for anyone from other parts of this nation already destroyed by unions and uber-tax policies by liberal Democrats coming down here to destroy our part of the nation, like pushing for unionizing all those Japanese, Korean, and European car manufacturer plants that did not go to New Jersey, Michigan, or California. Is that pretty clear enough?
Caveman
March 15th, 2009
9:15 am
Rural Georgians are nothing more than parastic welfare queens sucking money out of Atlantans pockets. Wooten will turn his usual right-wing rhetoric on it’s head to excuse the confiscation of wealth be backwoods Georgia because they are mostly bible-thumping ill-educated conservatives.
It’s great that Wooten proves yet again that conservatives have no principals or values that don’t bend when convenient. Way is excuse the massive welfare for your fellow travelers.
Caveman
March 15th, 2009
9:33 am
Since Wooten’s opinion is that tax money should be spread equally across Georgia, wouldn’t his essay be more appropriate if titled “Share the Wealth”?
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
9:33 am
I seriously think that Bill Shipp needs not ponder other people’s tingling danglings. He’s a most considered correspondent, with many better things to think about. For heaven’s sake, man!
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
9:33 am
Well what do you know. Washington D.C. has a local AIDS/HIV pandemic. Maybe The Nanny was right after all in her wishes to use some of the stimulus bill for condom buying.
By Jose Antonio Vargas and Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, March 15, 2009; A01
“At least 3 percent of District residents have HIV or AIDS, a total that far surpasses the 1 percent threshold that constitutes a “generalized and severe” epidemic, according to a report scheduled to be released by health officials tomorrow.”
“That translates into 2,984 residents per every 100,000 over the age of 12 — or 15,120 — according to the 2008 epidemiology report by the District’s HIV/AIDS office.”
“Our rates are higher than West Africa,” said Shannon L. Hader, director of the District’s HIV/AIDS Administration, who once led the Federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s work in Zimbabwe. “They’re on par with Uganda and some parts of Kenya.”
“We have every mode of transmission” — men having sex with men, heterosexual and injected drug use — “going up, all on the rise, and we have to deal with them,” Hader said.
“In addition to the epidemiology report, the city is also releasing a study on heterosexual behavior tomorrow. That report, funded by the CDC, was conducted by the George Washington University School of Health and Health Services.”
“Among its findings: Almost half of those who had connections to the parts of the city with the highest AIDS prevalence and poverty rates said they had overlapping sexual partners within the past 12 months, three in five said they were aware of their own HIV status, and three in 10 said they had used a condom the last time they had sex.”
Then again, we have to keep things in perspective: this is the same pseudo-commonwealth that has those liberal left wing pipe dream gun ban laws, yet still has one of the highest murder rates in the nation. To put that into perspective, DC had 46.4 murders per 100,000 people in 2007; right across the river in Arlington, it was 2.1 per 100,000. Good work liberals!
Regarding gun control, someone here mentioned that Georgia’s leaders are idiots. To many effects, I agree, especially when I see my state income tax go down the toilet and them having the audacity to even THINK of me paying even more. Anyway, every now and then they do something right. One such case in point was reported right here on the AJC regarding DC’s gun laws:
By BOB KEEFE
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Washington — An economic meltdown, global warming, two wars and a new administration may be important stuff, but for Georgia’s congressional delegation, so is the right to have a gun.
Republican Sens. Saxby Chambliss and Johnny Isakson on Wednesday co-sponsored legislation that would give residents of the District of Columbia the right to possess handguns for the first time in more than 30 years.
The Washington, D.C., city council outlawed pistols, automatic weapons and high-capacity semiautomatic firearms in 1976 as a way to stem the city’s soaring gun violence. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the ban last year, but the city council is looking at ways to rewrite its local laws to keep restrictions on such guns.
Isakson and Chambliss’ legislation is attached to a bill that would give the district its first voting seat in the House. The Senate passed the voting bill Tuesday.
The right to have a pistol in Washington is simply a basic constitutional right, Chambliss said.
“Only a government that does not trust its citizens would refuse them the right to bear arms,” Chambliss said in a statement. “The right of Americans in every part of the country to own guns, whether for sport or protection, is clearly defined in the Constitution and must not be compromised.”
Meanwhile, Rep. Paul Broun, an Athens Republican, announced Wednesday he was teaming up with Rep. Dan Boren (D-Okla.) to establish a Second Amendment Task Force. The task force is necessary to “educate elected officials and the public on the necessity of the Second Amendment to maintaining our freedom and liberty,” Broun said in a statement.
Broun’s Washington office is known for the stuffed animals he bagged on safaris.
Bill Shipp
March 15th, 2009
9:34 am
Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg 8:24 am
How much has the BMW plant cost South Carolina and what has the state of South Carolina get for their money?
More important how much has KIA cost Georgia and will we ever get our money back?
Big Bucks GOP
March 15th, 2009
9:38 am
Doctor NO is on “Meet the Press” if this the best we have we just as well turn out the lights.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
9:43 am
“Since Wooten’s opinion is that tax money should be spread equally across Georgia, wouldn’t his essay be more appropriate if titled “Share the Wealth”?”
Ah yes, a typical mindless libtard at heart. Hate your fellow Americans because of what they believe, or more pertinent, WHERE they live, liberal left wing cave dweller.
BTW: There is a lot of rural poor white rednecks (I figured I’d save you the insult, pompous libtard) that votes Democrat. They sure keep sending Robert Byrd back to Washington from West Virginia.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
9:45 am
My God, that’s distressing news from D.C. How horrible. All the work and money we’ve poured into Africa and the Caribbean, and here the thing rears its head in our own nation’s capital.
For shame.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
9:48 am
Mr. Shipp:
“How much has the BMW plant cost South Carolina and what has the state of South Carolina get for their money? More important how much has KIA cost Georgia and will we ever get our money back?”
Oh I see how you libtards play. So, the fact that jobs are brought to these states is irrelevant. You must poor-mouth and lambaste them. Now you tell me, how much money was taken out of your paycheck last year for that Kia plant? Do you know? Do you care to fact find or do you just care to bucket lip everything that happens for the better that didn’t happen in your beloved northeastern or north midwestern socialist Utopia?
I’ll tell you this much, ace: It cost taxpayers a HELL of a lot less than the money we won’t be getting back from US auto manufacturer and bank bailouts under Obama.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
9:56 am
Back to guns, well, here’s one way Obama and the Nannycrats in Congress are helping parts of the economy: gun and ammunition sales – and you can take to the bank this hardware isn’t made in China. And this story is just from Oklahoma:
By KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors Writer
Published: 3/13/2009 3:28 AM
Last Modified: 3/13/2009 12:59 PM
“Four months after the election of President Barack Obama, firearms and ammunition sales in Tulsa remain at a fever pitch.”
“Popular self-protection ammunition is often sold out at local stores, weapons are flying off shelves and the state reports an 87 percent increase in concealed carry permit applications for February 2009 over February 2008.”
“People are hoarding. They’re creating a shortage,” Jim Prall at Sports World on 41st Street said of ammunition sales. “We’ve sold more ammunition in the last three months than we sold last year.”
“Gun sales spiked in November with the election of Barack Obama and Democrats adding to their majority in Congress. But local gun dealers say the spike is turning into a steady climb with political worries about gun rights as well as worries about the economy and potential for increased crime.”
“Prall said his store planned ahead for the increase, having seen a similar spike
after Bill Clinton was elected, but the previous jump in sales pales in comparison to what’s happening now.”
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
9:59 am
Here, Mr. Shipp, I did some fact finding for you on the Kia plant:
“Kia certainly found plenty of incentives in west Georgia. When the company announced plans for its auto plant in early 2006, it came after intense courting from state and local officials, who offered the company tax breaks and other incentives totaling more than $400 million.”
Now maybe you can explain to the rest of us how tax breaks come out of your pocket. Oh wait, we already know that you libtards on the left think that federal income tax breaks are stolen from the poor and “working class” and merely given to those evil rich.
Never mind.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
10:03 am
This HIV/AIDs ourbreak in DC is a goddam national scandal. It calls for immediate action by the Commander-in-Chief. I swear to God, when in doubt do what TR would do: send in the Marines. The President immediately should appoint a Colonel of the Corps as Surgeon General and instruct that person to crack whatever heads necessary to address the DC problem as first priority. Later, that person could take on advocacy of Stem Cell research, or whatever, as necessary.
Mop it up!
Kamchak
March 15th, 2009
10:12 am
@ Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg:
“…coming down here to destroy our part of the nation…”
The war of northern aggression ended a century and a half ago, yet you still see carpetbaggers behind every tree. Is this the source of the digital, reactionary model through which you view the world? Do you enjoy the victimhood that is reinforced every day by Rush, Sean, Neil, Bill O, and little Billy K? You must, as evidenced in your delight in wallowing in it with every word you type.
What will THEY (the bad guys) do to YOU (the good guy)next?
“As a dog returns to its’ own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.”
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
10:17 am
Glenn: it’s rather amazing how the tune of the libtards in this nation changes when Democrats are in charge, no?
Kamhack: what’s a day without one of you pathetic liberal moonbats mentioning that what I say is taken from Rush/Hannity/Boortz/>insert neocon hater radio host here<. I thought you libtards said we right wingers were now irrelevant anyway. What happened? Idiot.
Now on to other news and back to hypocrisy of libtards, I’m sure everyone remembers the DNC mainstream media having a heyday over the Cheney F-bomb on a live mic. Well, it appears that Hair Plugs had a moment himself. Good luck watching the same DNC media have a heyday over this F-bomb:
Oh, That Joe! (No. 48 in a Series) — Gimme a Break
March 13, 2009 5:40 PM
At an event at Union Station today where Vice President Joe Biden was heralding the $1.3 billion in investments in rebuilding train stations and passenger rails, a microphone picked up one of the former senator’s myriad Senate colleagues addressing him, formally, as “Mr. Vice President.”
That met with Vice President Biden’s standard reply.
“Gimme a f*&$#ing break,” he said, apparently unaware that the microphone was on.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
10:19 am
And to Kamhack again: “The war of northern aggression ended a century and a half ago, yet you still see carpetbaggers behind every tree.”
Tell you what. You libtards stop bashing the South as if we still own slaves, and I’ll stop thinking of it as a separate region from the northeast, midwest, and west (which it IS the last time I looked at a map anyway).
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
10:31 am
Uh oh. What’s the Algore Global Warming priest going to do now? Oh wait, its now “Climate Change”. So, things being that cyclone/hurricane activity and energy is at a 30 year low (remember all the scaremongering from the Algore disciple moonbats after Katrina?). From an FSU study:
“Global and Northern Hemisphere Tropical Cyclone Activity [still] lowest in 30-years”
“Tropical cyclone (TC) activity worldwide has completely and utterly collapsed during the past 2 to 3 years with TC energy levels sinking to levels not seen since the late 1970s. As previously reported here and here at Climate Audit, and chronicled at my Florida State Global Hurricane Update page, both Northern Hemisphere and overall Global hurricane activity has continued to sink to levels not seen since the 1970s. Even more astounding, when the Southern Hemisphere hurricane data is analyzed to create a global value, we see that Global Hurricane Energy has sunk to 30-year lows, at the least.”
Quick! We’ve got another crisis on our hands that needs US taxpayer dollars ASAP! It’s global cooling again just like it was when Jimmy Carter was about to start planning on running for president!
Another Ice Age?
Monday, Jun. 24, 1974
Time Magazine
“In Africa, drought continues for the sixth consecutive year, adding terribly to the toll of famine victims. During 1972 record rains in parts of the U.S., Pakistan and Japan caused some of the worst flooding in centuries. In Canada’s wheat belt, a particularly chilly and rainy spring has delayed planting and may well bring a disappointingly small harvest. Rainy Britain, on the other hand, has suffered from uncharacteristic dry spells the past few springs. A series of unusually cold winters has gripped the American Far West, while New England and northern Europe have recently experienced the mildest winters within anyone’s recollection.”
“As they review the bizarre and unpredictable weather pattern of the past several years, a growing number of scientists are beginning to suspect that many seemingly contradictory meteorological fluctuations are actually part of a global climatic upheaval. However widely the weather varies from place to place and time to time, when meteorologists take an average of temperatures around the globe they find that the atmosphere has been growing gradually cooler for the past three decades. The trend shows no indication of reversing. Climatological Cassandras are becoming increasingly apprehensive, for the weather aberrations they are studying may be the harbinger of another ice age.”
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
10:39 am
Saw a GREAT Obama sticker:
“HONK if I’m paying your mortgage”
The “O” in it is that famous Obama “O” symbol in red, white, & blue. I gave the woman a big thumbs up and a wave – and yes, I was driving a much nicer car than her.
Remember, one of the Obama voters said this about her mortgage:
I won’t have to worry about putting gas in my car, I won’t have to worry about paying my mortgage…”
http://chicagoagainstobama.wordpress.com/2008/10/31/hope-obama-will-pay-my-mortgage-and-pay-for-my-gas/
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
11:21 am
Ah yes, those peaceful Muslims in Britain:
Minister beaten after clashing with Muslims on his TV show
By Jonathan Petre
Last updated at 12:37 PM on 15th March 2009
A Christian minister who has had heated arguments with Muslims on his TV Gospel show has been brutally attacked by three men who ripped off his cross and warned: ‘If you go back to the studio, we’ll break your legs.’
The Reverend Noble Samuel was driving to the studio when a car pulled over in front of him. A man got out and came over to ask him directions in Urdu.
Mr Samuel, based at Heston United Reformed Church, West London, said: ‘He put his hand into my window, which was half open, and grabbed my hair and opened the door.
He started slapping my face and punching my neck. He was trying to smash my head on the steering wheel.
Then he grabbed my cross and pulled it off and it fell on the floor. He was swearing. The other two men came from the car and took my laptop and Bible.’
Kamchak
March 15th, 2009
11:46 am
I would never “bash the south” as I was born on Peachtree St.
Bored now…
Chris Broe
March 15th, 2009
11:55 am
CNN just reported that the piece of space debris that almost took out the space station was actually an Iraqi Shoe. The man should get three years for this. Who are those guys? and who needs star wars? Is this like the low spark of high heeled boys? That Iraqi loafer just wanted to pump (slap) you up! That’s right Hanz. Ya. I cant end this riff. Somebody stop me.
Jackie
March 15th, 2009
11:57 am
The US Business Council reported a study that said that if the US were in a 100-yard dash, we would be 23 yards behind. Our health care system does not provide the benefits for what is required to sustain it.
http://apnews.excite.com/article/20090312/D96SEL5G0.html
Chris Broe
March 15th, 2009
12:02 pm
Chris mathew’s tinkle down his leg: The basis of our contract law, especially for artists, contain the vestiges of the one sided legal abominations that formed the pound of flesh we exacted from each and every party of the first part during slavery. That’s why you have a better chance at getting knifed by the cast of Different Strokes or Full House than by a terrorists.
How about Cheney still taking pot shots about the imminent threat of another 911 without him being our defacto commander in chief? Cheney is a dangerous man. He’s actually goading the prospect of a WMD strike on US soil and then by conceding it, can set up partisan claims of a Democratic bungle on Defensive Posturing.
It really is a shame that Obama let Osama get away in 2002 in Afghanistan when we had him.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
12:32 pm
Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg @ 10:17:
Yes, it is.
Our President is a fraud.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
12:59 pm
“I would never “bash the south” as I was born on Peachtree St.”
Well Kamcheck, maybe you need to keep your fellow libtards in check then. Just an observation.
PoFo: “it really is a shame that Obama let Osama get away in 2002 in Afghanistan when we had him.”
You never disappoint in dullard off the wall colorful libtardism. BTW: exactly what in the HELL has your ilk in Congress – especially those Democrats that have been in charge of the Senate Intelligence Committee since 2007 – been doing about Osama searching? How come we haven’t heard your beloved Nannycrats mouth off lately about not getting Osama not being found? How come we haven’t heard Obama talk about Osama?
Clinton Let Bin Laden Slip Away and Metastasize
* Sudan offered up the terrorist and data on his network. The then-president and his advisors didn’t respond.
By MANSOOR IJAZ
LA Times
December 5, 2001
President Clinton and his national security team ignored several opportunities to capture Osama bin Laden and his terrorist associates, including one as late as last year.
I know because I negotiated more than one of the opportunities.
From 1996 to 1998, I opened unofficial channels between Sudan and the Clinton administration. I met with officials in both countries, including Clinton, U.S. National Security Advisor Samuel R. “Sandy” Berger and Sudan’s president and intelligence chief. President Omar Hassan Ahmed Bashir, who wanted terrorism sanctions against Sudan lifted, offered the arrest and extradition of Bin Laden and detailed intelligence data about the global networks constructed by Egypt’s Islamic Jihad, Iran’s Hezbollah and the Palestinian Hamas.
Among those in the networks were the two hijackers who piloted commercial airliners into the World Trade Center.
The silence of the Clinton administration in responding to these offers was deafening.
As an American Muslim and a political supporter of Clinton, I feel now, as I argued with Clinton and Berger then, that their counter-terrorism policies fueled the rise of Bin Laden from an ordinary man to a Hydra-like monster.
Realizing the growing problem with Bin Laden, Bashir sent key intelligence officials to the U.S. in February 1996.
The Sudanese offered to arrest Bin Laden and extradite him to Saudi Arabia or, barring that, to “baby-sit” him–monitoring all his activities and associates.
But Saudi officials didn’t want their home-grown terrorist back where he might plot to overthrow them.
In May 1996, the Sudanese capitulated to U.S. pressure and asked Bin Laden to leave, despite their feeling that he could be monitored better in Sudan than elsewhere.
Bin Laden left for Afghanistan, taking with him Ayman Zawahiri, considered by the U.S. to be the chief planner of the Sept. 11 attacks; Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, who traveled frequently to Germany to obtain electronic equipment for Al Qaeda; Wadih El-Hage, Bin Laden’s personal secretary and roving emissary, now serving a life sentence in the U.S. for his role in the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Tanzania and Kenya; and Fazul Abdullah Mohammed and Saif Adel, also accused of carrying out the embassy attacks.
Some of these men are now among the FBI’s 22 most-wanted terrorists.
The two men who allegedly piloted the planes into the twin towers, Mohamed Atta and Marwan Al-Shehhi, prayed in the same Hamburg mosque as did Salim and Mamoun Darkazanli, a Syrian trader who managed Salim’s bank accounts and whose assets are frozen.
Important data on each had been compiled by the Sudanese.
But U.S. authorities repeatedly turned the data away, first in February 1996; then again that August, when at my suggestion Sudan’s religious ideologue, Hassan Turabi, wrote directly to Clinton; then again in April 1997, when I persuaded Bashir to invite the FBI to come to Sudan and view the data; and finally in February 1998, when Sudan’s intelligence chief, Gutbi al-Mahdi, wrote directly to the FBI.
Gutbi had shown me some of Sudan’s data during a three-hour meeting in Khartoum in October 1996. When I returned to Washington, I told Berger and his specialist for East Africa, Susan Rice, about the data available. They said they’d get back to me. They never did. Neither did they respond when Bashir made the offer directly. I believe they never had any intention to engage Muslim countries–ally or not. Radical Islam, for the administration, was a convenient national security threat.
And that was not the end of it. In July 2000–three months before the deadly attack on the destroyer Cole in Yemen–I brought the White House another plausible offer to deal with Bin Laden, by then known to be involved in the embassy bombings. A senior counter-terrorism official from one of the United States’ closest Arab allies–an ally whose name I am not free to divulge–approached me with the proposal after telling me he was fed up with the antics and arrogance of U.S. counter-terrorism officials.
The offer, which would have brought Bin Laden to the Arab country as the first step of an extradition process that would eventually deliver him to the U.S., required only that Clinton make a state visit there to personally request Bin Laden’s extradition. But senior Clinton officials sabotaged the offer, letting it get caught up in internal politics within the ruling family–Clintonian diplomacy at its best.
Clinton’s failure to grasp the opportunity to unravel increasingly organized extremists, coupled with Berger’s assessments of their potential to directly threaten the U.S., represents one of the most serious foreign policy failures in American history.
Mansoor Ijaz, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, is chairman of a New York-based investment company.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
1:04 pm
More for PoFo:
“How about Cheney still taking pot shots about the imminent threat of another 911 without him being our defacto commander in chief? Cheney is a dangerous man. He’s actually goading the prospect of a WMD strike on US soil”
He is warning us of taking the eye off the ball. Besides, exactly how different is that from your ilk like Dick Durbin and other Democrats who were hell bent in 2004-2007 or so in bad mouthing the Iraq war effort and sacrifice of our troops to the point of Osama bin Laden himself using their talking points?
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
1:39 pm
“Our health care system does not provide the benefits for what is required to sustain it.”
Well, 86% of this nation has a health care plan and for the most part, nobody is dying in the streets. I can’t wait for universal health care where I wait in a government line behind someone who has no life with a stubbed toe while I sit there bleeding from a pork butt knife cut all because said someone has the same access I do. Oh yeah, and good luck libtard socialists when you can’t sue a government employee in your “Free” health care for all for incompetence. Can’t wait!
Now moving on to more insanity of libtardism….
The mainstream DNC lib media in print has recently gotten one nostril out of the sand. They have discovered that they don’t give enough Conservative points and are actually producing more views from the alleged right. The AJC is only the latest example (and I’m not talking about Wooten or his replacement). But pertinent to this point, it’s the Washington Post’s token alleged neocon, Kathleen Parker. You have to remember that to a liberal, anyone to the right of them is a neocon, even if they are a centrist “Conservative” at best. So, my expectations for a newspaper to simply report the facts – rather than hide the truth or at best extrapolate the half truths – shows that I’m too ignorant to understand said newspapers’ perspective. Got it Kathleen. Thanks.
By Kathleen Parker
Sunday, March 15, 2009; Page A17
BOSTON — The biggest challenge facing America’s struggling newspaper industry may not be the high cost of newsprint or lost ad revenue, but ignorance stoked by drive-by punditry.
Yes, Dittoheads, you heard it right.
Drive-by pundits, to spin off of Rush Limbaugh’s “drive-by media,” are non-journalists who have been demonizing the media for the past 20 years or so and who blame the current news crisis on bias.
There is surely room for media criticism, and a few bad actors in recent years have badly frayed public trust. And, yes, some newspapers are more liberal than their readership and do a lousy job of concealing it.
But the greater truth is that newspaper reporters, editors and institutions are responsible for the boots-on-the-ground grub work that produces the news stories and performs the government watchdog role so crucial to a democratic republic.
Unfortunately, the chorus of media bashing from certain quarters has succeeded in convincing many Americans that they don’t need newspapers. The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press recently found that fewer than half of Americans — 43 percent — say that losing their local newspaper would hurt civic life in their community “a lot.” Only 33 percent say they would miss the local paper if it were no longer available.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
2:01 pm
HONK! if I’m educating your kid…
Yeah, @@, I too am worried about Pakistan. Seems ripe for another strongman…maybe the same one…
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
2:04 pm
Hey Andy, d’ya mind if I steal your “Nannycrat” coinage? It’s great.
Dusty
March 15th, 2009
2:12 pm
Dear C M Tingling Leg,
You are on a roll today. Thank goodness. I hadn’t seen Bill Shipp’s shot at the South. But I think you took care of that.
Glenn,
if Shipp is such a man of renoun why is he here raging away on a blog? Is that all he has to do?
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
2:56 pm
Hey Glenn, you can use any of my wordings. I don’t take much time in phrases when dealing with the libtard left. I just fire from the hip, so to speak. “Nannycrats” just kinda popped out there. It really is what it is thought, isn’t it? Sometimes I crack myself up – all at libtard expense of course. (PS: I’m not “Andy”).
Dusty: I’m about fed up with libtards treating the South as if we were still in the 1950s. Besides, it doesn’t take much brain muscle to expose the indefinite idiocy of liberalism.
And now, there is more for Sunday follies. Why is it only when Democrats run Washington that the communists feel they have to flex their muscle and be belligerent?
Report: Cuba, Venezuela could host Russian bombers
By DAVID NOWAK, Asssociated Press Writer David Nowak, Asssociated Press Writer – Sat Mar 14, 3:38 pm ET
MOSCOW – A Russian air force chief said Saturday that the country could base some strategic bombers in Cuba or on an island offered by Venezuela, the Interfax news agency reported, but a Kremlin official quickly said the military had been speaking only hypothetically.
The U.S. and Russia have been trying to reset their relationship, severely strained over U.S. plans to position missile defense elements in Poland and the Czech Republic and by Russia’s invasion of U.S. ally Georgia last year.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
3:19 pm
Well thank you, Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg, for your “Nannycrats”, a term I shall immediately flourish with abandon. It seems that I should have been using it, lo, these past thirty years. I seem to have been destined since the mid-’70s to piss on the shoes of those who would control other people’s children, and “Nannycrats” so aptly describes those wearing the shoes.
It’s interesting, what you say about shooting from the hip as you blog. I suppose that’s the best form for blogging, but I do wonder how lethal you must be when you actually bother to compose.
I’m reading Fred Kaplan’s new book on Lincoln, the subtitle of which is, “A Biography of a Writer”. It’s what I was taught to think of Lincoln: Genus Stylist. Kaplan argues really well that words — honest, fitting, accessible words — meant everything to Lincoln, so much so that they willed him into being. Into being better. Always better.
Lincoln was great guns for better, ever better, and the betterment of everyone.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
3:22 pm
Oh Dusty, that’s so impolite that it cannot be the real you…
Why, are you a candidate for Jim’s job?
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
3:23 pm
Russia can go to hell. I do not understand why we tarry in that process.
Glenn
March 15th, 2009
3:35 pm
Three elderly English clubmen in their cups took the last train home. Passing their compartment, the Cockney conductor announced, “Wembley! Next stop: Wembley Station!”
The first gentleman, lifting his drooling chin from his waistcoat, asked, “Wembley?”
The second replied, “No, Thursd’y.”
Said the third, “So am I…so let’s get off and (urp)…have a drink!”
With that I bid you adieu…
Bill Shipp
March 15th, 2009
3:43 pm
Chris Matthew’s Tingling Leg 9:59 am
You’ll be rich if you can patent what you are smoking..
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
3:54 pm
“You’ll be rich if you can patent what you are smoking..”
Ah, well Mr. “Shipp,” I must say that I admire you for at least saying SOMETHING in retort. That’s better than most libtards I deal with who usually just retort with “you are angry and full of hate.” Thanks for being one step above a cockroach.
Dusty
March 15th, 2009
3:55 pm
Dear Glenn,
I see you are in your teachery coaching mood today. I am not impolite. I asked most politely WHY IS BILL SHIPP, a professional liberal journalist, wasting time on a conservative blog of little importance??? I consider all blogs to be of little importance but fun occasionally.
NO, I am not a candidate for Jim’s job. I wouldn’t want to make those AJC decider editors laugh. They might want to send me to California. See, I did not say… where all the nuts and naughty go. That would be impolite but appallingly honest.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
4:04 pm
The future of America:
ScienceDaily (Mar. 13, 2009) — Are Americans flunking science? A new national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences and conducted by Harris Interactive® reveals that the U.S. public is unable to pass even a basic scientific literacy test. …
According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:
* Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
* Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
* Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth’s surface that is covered with water.
* Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.
Yet the majority of these people are “smart” enough to know that Obama is the greatest thing to happen to this nation. Ever.
Pathetic.
Get Real
March 15th, 2009
4:07 pm
Wooten is a complete fraud. Previous posts that he’s made say that Buckhead and North Fulton should secede from their counterparts because they pay more in taxes than most in the City of Atlanta and South Fulton. He’s a cherry-picker at best, and a two-faced liar at worst.
Dusty
March 15th, 2009
4:10 pm
Get Real…..get lost…..
sl3
March 15th, 2009
4:11 pm
I thought this is about dirt? I consider myself a moderate and agree with many of Wooten’s opinions, but I am not on board with this one. Living in N. Fulton we are paying the highest property taxes in the state because we pay like 15% of our property tax to Grady Hospital which is used by about everybody that has no insurance. How much is that county in south Ga paying towards Calhoun Memorial? I doubt anybody in the state gets reemed as much as N. Fulton taxpayers. Without the metro Atlanta economic engine this state would be broke and state legislators should be helping out a little more than they do.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
4:14 pm
“WASHINGTON (AP) – The Obama administration is abandoning one of President George W. Bush’s key phrases in the war on terrorism: enemy combatant. In court filings Friday, the Justice Department said it will no longer use the term to justify holding prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.”
Oh I see. More liberal euphamisms. No, wait, let’s just let everyone in Gitmo go free. They’re all innocent civilians from Cheney’s holocaustic made up war. So how many “detainees” released from Gitmo to return to the battle front against the West does this make?
Officials: New Taliban chief was once at Gitmo
Operation officer was released to the Afghan government in 2007
updated 9:20 p.m. ET, Tues., March. 10, 2009
WASHINGTON – The Taliban’s new top operations officer in southern Afghanistan had been a prisoner at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, the latest example of a freed detainee who took a militant leadership role and a potential complication for the Obama administration’s efforts to close the prison.
U.S. authorities handed over the detainee to the Afghan government, which in turn released him, according to Pentagon and CIA officials.
Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, formerly Guantanamo prisoner No. 008, was among 13 Afghan prisoners released to the Afghan government in December 2007. Rasoul is now known as Mullah Abdullah Zakir, a nom de guerre that Pentagon and intelligence officials say is used by a Taliban leader who is in charge of operations against U.S. and Afghan forces in southern Afghanistan.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
4:19 pm
“Living in N. Fulton we are paying the highest property taxes in the state because we pay like 15% of our property tax to Grady Hospital which is used by about everybody that has no insurance…I doubt anybody in the state gets reemed as much as N. Fulton taxpayers.”
sl3: did you miss my post on 3/14 at 11:02am here on said topic? I agree with your post wholeheartedly, by the by. But you need to tread carefully on what you post. Stuck on stupid 1960s liberals here will read in between your lines and call you a racist if you trash talk your tax dollars going to Grady.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
4:20 pm
“Wooten is a complete fraud.”
Typical mindless libtard. When they have nothing to say, they just sling feces.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
4:30 pm
Don’t look now, but a California bred moonbat is about to be released . Don’t you just love liberal euphemisms such as “counter culture” to describe domestic TERRORISTS?
SACRAMENTO, Calif. – A saga that began in the violent cauldron of California’s 1970s radical counterculture and took a dramatic turn into a quiet middle-class neighborhood in Minnesota is about to come to an end.
Sara Jane Olson, who was a fugitive for a quarter-century after attempting to kill Los Angeles police officers and participating in a deadly bank robbery near Sacramento as a member of the Symbionese Liberation Army, is scheduled to be released from a California prison next week.
One bomb, packed with nails, failed to explode as Hall and his partner drove away from a restaurant in Los Angeles’ Hollywood Division on an August night. A similar unexploded device was found under another police car miles away.
“That bomb should have gone off that night,” Hall said. “I would have been just one of many people that would have been dead. It just brings up a lot of anger knowing that she’s going to be released.”
Hall recalls that a girl about 8 years old was watching from the restaurant.
“That little girl was waving at us as we drove off. If that bomb would have gone off, she would have been killed along with her family,” said Hall, who served 31 years with the department. “I haven’t forgiven her (Olson) in the least for what she’s done and what she could have done to many more innocent people.”
williewonka
March 15th, 2009
5:20 pm
Dusty…I realize you’re pretty simply minded! However to think that Bill Shipp is actually blogging here at Wootens corner is really going beyond the pale……
@@
March 15th, 2009
5:56 pm
I’ve posed the same question, Elizabeth…. Silence! Total and absolute silence. I ’spose style over substance could be the answer.
What gives? Whenever a conservative leader talks about pay differences for educators instead of one-size-fits-all raises, teachers’ unions say “no,” “no” and, “hell, no.” And whenever a Republican supports charter schools, NEA members start calling politicians enemies of public schools.
Obama should also propose increasing teacher effectiveness by encouraging states to allow schools to hire untraditional teachers, meaning individuals with an expertise and a demonstrable ability to work with students even if they aren’t certified. Hiring private-sector experts in math and science (some of whom have been laid off recently) makes sense.
Sho ’nuff it does! I’d love to see some of our highly educated military (ret.) in the classrooms — middle and high school of course. It’s a tough world out there. Who better to show them?
I didn’t know there were any conservatives in Oregon.
Chris Broe
March 15th, 2009
7:25 pm
The third octuplet from the left on the papoose progressionary charts looks like he’s already bought a one way ticket to Palookaville. He couwa had class. He couwa been somebody.
I’m in favor of legistlation to ban future Octomoms if it would have prevented the Jonas Brothers.
Chris Broe
March 15th, 2009
7:49 pm
Cheney is a traitor. Fact. He belayed a direct order that Bush gave to Rummy to advance on Al Queda. That is a fact. We were robbed by Cheney of our commander in chief, just like Cheney’s trying to rob us of confidence in our commander in chief now. Cheney is now constantly trying to belittle our new commander in chief. He apparently never saw a commander in chief he liked.
Now that Cheney is gone, of course, we’ll get the 911 that we all have coming to us, from the various causes that he set in motion with his treason. The only reason we don’t prosecute is because of executive privilege, war powers, and the Gerald Ford Factor: we have declined to put the country through a demoralizing national trial. (Why put the country through a gauntlet of civics legalese that can only educate them about the different roles of the three separate branches of our government)?
It’s easy to grasp how we govern, and it’s a civic duty to encourage participation in it.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
7:54 pm
Yep, the Obama administration knows what in the hell it is doing, that’s for sure. CHANGE we can believe in! (Change in tone, change in rhetoric, change in policy, change in…)
Obama aides shift their rhetoric on economy. Take up theme of sound fundamentals despite bashing idea in campaign.
WASHINGTON – The economy is fundamentally sound despite the temporary “mess” it’s in, the White House said Sunday in the kind of upbeat assessment that Barack Obama had mocked as a presidential candidate.
Obama’s Democratic allies pleaded for patience with an administration hitting the two-month mark this week, while Republicans said the White House’s plans ignore small business and the immediate need to fix what ails the economy. After weeks projecting a dismal outlook on the economy, administration officials — led by the president himself in recent days — swung their rhetoric toward optimism in what became Wall Street’s best stretch since November.
During the fall campaign, Obama relentlessly criticized his Republican opponent, Sen. John McCain, for declaring, “The fundamentals of our economy are strong.” Obama’s team painted the veteran senator as out of touch and failing to grasp the challenges facing the country.
Chris Matthew's Tingling Leg
March 15th, 2009
8:03 pm
Just another observation: listening to a libtard even MENTION octomom – the biggest liberal wet dream result ever of socialism and welfare assistance – in the same keystrokes as an insult pointed at Conservatives is stunning.
Steve Brown
March 16th, 2009
6:03 am
It would be considerate to both the reader and the author to cite the title of the paper/report/article you are referring to in your column.
Even better, you could create a link to it in your electronic version.
cranky old man
March 16th, 2009
2:37 pm
“The research, for whatever political purposes it might be used, does raise the question of whether the state’s obligation is to serve dirt or people. Yes, metro Atlanta disproportionately pays. But metro Atlanta disproportionately earns. It’s not the dirt that pays or earns.”
Hmm. Sounds a lot like, “From each according to his ability. To each according to his need.”
I just couldn’t resist.