Policy and Politics
tfk | February 27, 2007The unofficial results show that the City Commission race will be between progressive candidates Highberger, Schauner and Maynard-Moody and aggressive growth candidates Dever, Chestnut and Bush.
The major issues of the race will be "smart growth" versus growth without an adjective. That will translate into differences on the extension of K-10 through the Baker Wetlands, disagreements over industrial zones, and almost surely contentious debates over the domestic partnership registry.
On April 3, voters will pick three of these six candidates.
Highberger and Schauner are incumbents. Bush…
tfk | February 27, 2007Despite Tony's endorsement, I'm not loving Stay Red Kansas. Tony thinks it's written by insiders, but I see a lot of juvenile errors, and I almost suspect that it's a new venture by the gang from Fire Kansas Democrats. The mistakes they make are basic, like claiming that the RNC would kick in funds for a Senate race, when the National Republican Senate Campaign would do that.
One thing that isn't juvenile is their distaste for voting:
In fact, the voting process is so ridiculously unregulated in our humble state of Kansas, that so long as a name, address and birth date are memorized, you…
tfk | February 26, 2007It never ends, does it. KC mayoral candidates are on TV. I confess I haven't watched those races at all. Read Tony or whatever to find out who's who.
I'm with Red Letter Day on the Lawrence City Council elections. You get to vote for 3 candidates, the top six votegetters go on to the general election:
Dennis 'Boog' Highberger
David Schauner
Carey Maynard-Moody
This is the progressive group of candidates. The handy-dandy LJ World candidate selector says those are the candidates whose statements I liked best.
In Johnson County, you get to vote for the JCCC Board of Directors. TfK's…
tfk | February 26, 2007Bruce Chapman writes about "encouraging signs in Baghdad" at the DI's blog:
The days you do not hear on the news of some new killing of American troops in Baghdad is a day when the news really should announce: "No Americans Were Killed in Baghdad Today" or even "In Iraq Today."
That's right. In addition to its advocacy for creationism, the DI also has fingers in other pots on the far right wing of the political spectrum, including the quagmire in Iraq. John McCain dedicated his DI sponsored speech to Iraq and other foreign policy. And all they can think of to say about the bloody disaster…
tfk | February 26, 2007The ultra-wingnuts at the Council for National Policy can't decide who to endorse:
Many conservatives have already declared their hostility to Senator John McCain of Arizona, …[who] once denounced Christian conservative leaders as “agents of intolerance,” and to former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York, because of his liberal views on abortion and gay rights and his three marriages.
Many were also suspicious of former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts … a dossier [circulated at the meeting attacked]… liberal elements of his record on abortion, stem cell research and gay rights.…
Gov. Mike…
tfk | February 25, 2007Set aside, for the moment, Smithsonian Secretary Lawrence Small's conviction for violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Set aside, too, that he petitioned the judge to allow him to perform his 100 hours of community service by reading about that law and the Endangered Species Act, and coming up with ways to change those laws.
Set aside, too, the fact that Small has presided over a Smithsonian which is falling behind in critical maintenance, with reports of severe roof leaks in the collections. Set aside the institution's wrongheaded almost-endorsement of Privileged Planet, a creationist…
tfk | February 25, 2007Where environmental groups had been fighting against new coal plants only days ago, a record buyout will put TXU firmly behind their agenda:
Under a proposed $45 billion buyout by a team of private equity firms, the TXU Corporation, a Texas utility that has long been the bane of environmental groups, will abandon plans to build 8 of 11 coal plants and commit to a broad menu of environmental measures, according to people involved in the negotiations.
The roster of commitments came through an unusual process in which the equity firms asked two prominent environmental groups what measures could…
tfk | February 24, 2007Scibling Chad weighs in on the discussion between Mark Kleiman and Kevin Drum among others, over whether firing teachers would improve the schools. Kevin wonders whether principals would know enough about teacher performance to know which ones to fire. Kleiman observes that "that discussion leaves out what seems to me the most important fact: For current wages and under current working conditions, there's no ready supply of good teachers to replace those who would be fired if we made firing teachers easier." And Chad rightly notes that:
The incompetent teacher trope is one of the standard…
tfk | February 24, 2007
Jim Zumbo is a famous hunter, and has been writing about guns, the outdoors, and hunting, for decades. He has a TV show and is an editor and writer for the second largest outdoor magazine in the nation. Or rather, he was all those things. He lost it all one evening, when, after a hard day of hunting on a Remington Arms funded coyote hunt, Zumbo blogged the following words:
"Excuse me, maybe I'm a traditionalist, but I see no place for these weapons among our hunting fraternity," Zumbo wrote in his blog on the Outdoor Life Web site. The Feb. 16 posting has since been taken down. "As…
tfk | February 23, 2007Of course, McCain was more subtle than my title, arguing "I believe that if we fail and leave you will see chaos and genocide." As if that wasn't already what we see.
Those of us without rose colored glasses, of course.
Almost exactly a year ago, I wrote a post about the Panglossian paradigm in creationist apologetics, in which I argued that creationists rely on the idea that everything is for the best in this best of all possible worlds. It's a shame that the same ideology is governing our Iraq policy, and endangering our soldiers' lives.
Dr. Pangloss, of course, is the philosopher who…
tfk | February 23, 2007Via ThinkProgress, Dick Cheney tells ABCNews:
I think there’s an emerging consensus that we do have global warming. You can look at the data on that, and I think clearly we’re in a period of warming. Where there does not appear to be a consensus, where it begins to break down, is the extent to which that’s part of a normal cycle versus the extent to which it’s caused by man, greenhouse gases, et cetera.
Cheney is understating both points. The IPCC SPM does not say that there is an emerging consensus on global warming, it says "Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident…
tfk | February 23, 2007The Wichita Eagle reports that a proposed state law would allow censorship of letters from sex offenders at a state medical hospital. The bill follows an Eagle report on dangerous conditions at the hotel which was based on a tip from an inmate.
I understand the rationale for censoring communications to past or potential victims. But the news media and state officials regularly receive mail from many different people, and have ways to screen their communications.
tfk | February 23, 2007In today's Washington Post, what loonie leftist wrote:
The real "inconvenient truth" about climate change is that some people are losing their rights and freedoms because of the actions of others -- in either the quality of the air they breathe, the geography they hold dear, the insurance costs they bear or the future environment of the children they love.
Was it likely Oscar-winner Al Gore? French President Jacques Chirac? Untrustworthy loonie leftist environmentalist John McCain?
No, just conservative Governor Mark Sanford, of South Carolina. I suspect this means that any Republican…
tfk | February 22, 2007First it was anti-wilderness advocate Gail Norton leading the Interior Department, authoritarian hacks Alberto "Bind, Torture, Kill" Gonzales and John Ashcroft as Attorneys General, Spencer "Abolish the Energy Department" as Secretary of Energy, as well as mine industry officials running mine safety program, and who could forget Michael "Heckuva Job" Brown.
Now, President Bush plans to nominate a longtime enemy of consumer safety laws to head … the Consumer Product Safety Commission.
Welcome to the henhouse.
tfk | February 21, 2007The Kansas state minimum wage (which affects only those outside federal standards) is $2.65. The recent push to boost the federal minimum wage inspired some legislators to try boosting the state minimum, but 62 Kansas House Republicans rejected the increase.
Rep. Benjamin Hodge reportedly rejected the bill because he wants to avoid "European-style socialist bills."
Because here in America, if you can't live on $106 per week, you just aren't trying.
tfk | February 21, 2007
For whatever reason, there is some sort of conventional wisdom that, in 2006, Nancy Boyda "didn't win, the district, Ryun lost the district." That quote comes from Duke University's David Rohde, and here is the Wichita Eagle's comment on Boyda's choice not to accept DCCC support:
This will make 2008 not only a retest of her grassroots campaign style and a referendum on her already controversial record, but also a test of the theory that she didn’t so much win in November as Jim Ryun lost -- because his conservative base stayed home.
The idea that the conservative base just doesn't seem to…
tfk | February 20, 2007Brad Delong is surprised. The National Review organized a Presidents' Day symposium of historians on great presidents, yielding this list:
Richard Brookhiser... George Washington
H. W. Crocker III... Ronald Reagan
John Derbyshire... Calvin Coolidge
Bruce Frohnen... William Henry Harrison
Paul Kengor... Ronald Reagan
John J. Miller... Calvin Coolidge
Delong remarks:
It would be inconceivable for any of them to name... Abraham Lincoln, wouldn't it?
Of course, because why honor a man who ended slavery?
What surprises me is that Teddy Roosevelt, champion of the little man, robust…
tfk | February 17, 2007What would we do if Sam Brownback and Pat Roberts weren't there to save us from nonbinding resolutions opposing the escalation. All that would stand between democracy and our policy in Iraq would be Joe Lieberman.
Conveniently, John McCain had to be out of town for an ice cream social and to teach children not to use condoms. Priorities, you know.
tfk | February 17, 2007In response to Amanda and Melissa's comments on their recent adventures with right-wing's attack machine, the response has been predictable. When they post examples of death threats leveled against them, the braintrust at protein wisdom writes:
The speech is protected; there is no right, on the other hand, to protection from the fall-out that such speech might provoke.
Errr … no. There is absolutely a right to protection against violence and threats of imminent violence. Consider 18 USC 875
(c) Whoever transmits in interstate or foreign commerce any communication containing … any threat…
tfk | February 16, 2007
From the Congressional Record:
Mr. REYES. Mr. Speaker, it is now my pleasure to yield 5 minutes to a valued member of the Armed Services Committee, the gentlewoman from Kansas (Mrs. Boyda).
Mrs. BOYDA of Kansas. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss the most critical issue this Congress, indeed our Nation, is facing. The U.S. military is the best fighting force in the world, and it is vitally important that we keep it that way. I am concerned that the President's planned escalation is too little, too late, and it will further deplete our military's readiness.
My life changed in the late…