Archive for February 27th, 2007

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

If you live in Washington…

Midnight tomorrow night the Google the State Budget Bill (HB 2342) is going to die without your help because it hasn't gotten out of legislative committee.  Which means, without some speedy action, another Washington State budget will pass without the ability (with apologies and cite to President G.W. Bush) "to call up the name and location of entities receiving" state "funds, and will provide them with the purpose of the funding, the amount of the money provided, the agency providing the funding and other relevant information."

Read THIS Evergreen Freedom Foundation press release for more and go HERE for state legislative contact information via phone & e-mail.

Remember, it was the blogosphere and activated citizens that got us the federal legislation to make this so.  It's the blogosphere and activated citizens that's going to have to deliver the state version.  Please go HERE for state legislative contact information via phone & e-mail and make something happen.

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Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Uh-Oh!

The famous Aerial Tram shut down today for a bit, because wind gusts occasionally hit 40 miles an hour.  Who'd ever have thought?  We almost never get wind gusts that high, sitting here at the mouth of the funnel that is the Columbia River Gorge.  Fire up the buses, boys!  You'd almost think this ski-lift was thought up by the same folks who bring you light rail - because we never get ice storms here.  Oh, wait…

Now they want to sell you a bridge, for only <snicker> $6 billion.  Like our $15 million tram?  Oh, never mind the cost overruns.  That tram thing ran close to $60 million, but hey.  But some guy came up with a great idea: forget the super-bridge - build 40 or 50 trams to carry traffic between Portland and Vancouver.  The idea has great potential.  Less expensive, and would take thousands of cars off the freeway.  Unless it gets breezy.  As Ted Kennedy might say, "We'll drive off that bridge when we come to it".

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Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Greenhouse skeptics?

Well, how can this be?  It's been frequently claimed that the debate is over, and of course, globally-acclaimed atmospheric chemist AlGore (who also helped to invent the internets) has had awards heaped upon him for his role in producing one of the poorest science-fiction movies of all time.  Nonetheless, it appears that there are skeptical scientists out there (rarely if ever publicised, of course).  "Environmentalism has largely superseded Christianity as the religion of the upper classes in Europe and to a lesser extent in the United States"…

Dr Jensen, a nuclear physicist, has said he is not convinced that human activity is responsible for global warming.

In an interview with The Age last month, Mr Evans acknowledged that last September's visit by former US vice-president Al Gore to promote his Oscar-winning global-warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth had helped generate a lot of publicity on climate change.

Read the rest of the post here....

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

We’re All Gonna Die! Part…um, whatever

Really, you can't keep track of it.  We're all gonna die because of Global Warming and it's All Your Fault, and you need to reduce your "carbon footprint" and yadda yadda.  Well, you've doubtless already seen some of the hypocrisy of AlGore and his fellow wealthy followers, so you understand that Global Warming is a new religion, or more accurately, a new cult.  The leaders are much like Bagbalm Shree Rajneesh, who had around a hundred high-end cars to drive while preaching a minimalist lifestyle to his followers.

Like Bagbalm, AlGore is revered by his devotees, and they ignore his excessive lifestyle.  As the leader of the cult, it is only his due.  It seems likely that if AlGore told his acolytes to drink the Kool-Aid, they would willingly do so.  But the wooden man is a little smarter than Jimmy Jones was.  He wants to keep living high on the hog, while proposing that everyone else make do with less.  And so unlike Jimmy, he needs to keep his followers around.  Jones was willing to die with his followers.  AlGore doesn't see a lot of personal benefit to that.  And in that, he's correct.

Read the rest of the post here....

Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Good Legislation - Public Records Exemption Accountability Committee

Another good bill worth fighting for - Senate Bill 5435, the bipartisan legislation requested by Attorney General Rob McKenna-R Washington State to take a look at the 300+ exemptions in the public disclosure act, passed the State Senate 48-0.

Please contact your state representatives and ask them to pass SB 5435 out of the state house!  As Attorney General McKenna said last December, “The whole purpose of open government is defeated if there are too many exemptions to the Public Records Act.”

[Hat-tip: State Senator Claudia Kauffman, D-Kent]

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Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Outrage of the Day (2007-02-27)

From today's Seattle Times:

Eighty-three convicted criminals — including high-risk sex offenders and violent felons — have been released from two King County jails because they exceeded the total that the state Department of Corrections was allowed to place there.

The felons had all been placed in the jails, in Seattle and Kent, because they were accused of violating the terms of their release from prison. A significant number of the offenders had been arrested because they had missed mandatory appointments with community corrections officers, said a spokeswoman for the union that represents the officers.

Other violations included failing to attend mandatory drug or mental-health treatment.

The mass release on Friday, ordered by the Department of Corrections (DOC), came after repeated complaints from King County about the DOC booking too many people into county facilities.

[Rest of the story]

Hat-tip: Orbusmax, one of my two home pages

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Tuesday, February 27th, 2007

Hillary In Trouble With the Law

This is - as they say in French - c'est incroyable! Senator Hillary (the Brittle) Clinton is busted!!

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former president Bill Clinton have operated a family charity since 2001, but she failed to list it on annual Senate financial disclosure reports on five occasions.

The Ethics in Government Act requires members of Congress to disclose positions they hold with any outside entity, including nonprofit foundations. Hillary Clinton has served her family foundation as treasurer and secretary since it was established in December 2001, but none of her ethics reports since then have disclosed that fact.

The foundation has enabled the Clintons to write off more than $5 million from their taxable personal income since 2001, while dispensing $1.25 million in charitable contributions over that period.

Read the rest of the post here....