Billboards Link Two Heated Issues

Wow.

The message on dozens of billboards across the city is provocative: Black children are an “endangered species.”

The eyebrow-raising ads featuring a young black child are an effort by the anti-abortion movement to use race to rally support within the black community. The reaction from black leaders has been mixed, but the “Too Many Aborted” campaign, which so far is unique to only Georgia, is drawing support from other anti-abortion groups across the country.

[...]

The effort is sponsored by Georgia Right to Life, which also is pushing legislation that aims to ban abortions based on race.

Black women accounted for the majority of abortions in Georgia in 2006, even though blacks make up just a third of state population, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Nationally, black women were more than three times as likely to get an abortion in 2006 compared with white women, according to the CDC.

Where In The World?

Since nobody got the last one, I made this one a bit easier. 

UPDATE: Congrats to Captain Ned!  This is Rybachiy Submarine Base. 

From Global Security. 

The primary Pacific Fleet operating bases are Pavlovskoye [Pavlovsk] near Vladivostok and Rybachiy near Petropavlovsk. Petropavlovsk is home to much of Russia’s Pacific nuclear submarine fleet.

Located on the far-eastern frontier of Russia and the former Soviet Union, Kamchatka has always been of strategic importance. Home to the Pacific nuclear submarine fleet at the secret Rybachy base, the Peninsula was a closed region for many decades, until the early 1990s. Even today, a decade after the Cold War’s end, Russia continues to maintain a heavy military presence on the Peninsula, and many areas of Kamchatka remain off-limits. Located across Avacha Bay, the city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky is the industrial, scientific and cultural center of Kamchatka.

Rybachiy is an inspectable submarine facility under the START-1 agreement. The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) on 31 July 1991. When START entered into force on 05 December 1994, the signatories began to implement the Treaty’s complex set of intrusive inspection and verification measures. As part of START’s verification provisions, each signatory was required to declare all facilities related to ICBMs, submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and heavy bombers. The former Soviet Union (FSU) has declared over five dozen START-inspectable sites in all categories, including five SLBM facilities and six submarine facilities.

Unsustainable Debt

Ouch.

It’s bad enough that Greece’s debt problems have rattled global financial markets. In the world’s largest economic and military power, there’s a far more serious debt dilemma.

For the U.S., the crushing weight of its debt threatens to overwhelm everything the federal government does, even in the short-term, best-case financial scenario — a full recovery and a return to prerecession employment levels.

The government already has made so many promises to so many expanding “mandatory” programs. Just keeping these commitments, without major changes in taxing and spending, will lead to deficits that cannot be sustained.

Take Social Security, Medicare and other benefits. Add in interest payments on a national debt that now exceeds $12.3 trillion. It all will gobble up 80 percent of all federal revenues by 2020, government economists project.

That doesn’t leave room for much else. What’s left is the entire rest of the government, including military and homeland security spending, which has been protected and nurtured by the White House and Congress, regardless of the party in power.

The U.S. debt crisis also raises the question of how long the world’s leading power can remain its largest borrower.

School Board Primary Cometh

The West Bend school board primary is on Tuesday.  On the ballot are Carl W. Knepel, Kathy Van Eerden, Bart Williams, Lynn Corazzi, Randy Marquardt, Doug Ziegler, Douglas Rakowski and Dave Weigand, but Carl Knepel and Bart Williams have withdrawn from the race. 

Voters can choose two candidates.  The top four will advance to the general election in April. 

As I said in my column a couple of weeks ago, I’m supporting Randy Marquardt and Dave Weigand. 

I’ve spoken with all of the candidates, read their various interviews and questionnaires from other places, and attended one of the forums.  My opinion remains the same.  Here’s the short form of my rationale:

I’m not going to vote for either one of the incumbents.  They are nice people and have a sincere commitment to the schools, but both of them repeatedly voted for and supported things that I opposed.  Why would I support someone with whom I constantly disagree on the issues - irrespective of my personal regard for them?

Douglas Rakowski and Doug Ziegler seem like great guys with strong conservative credentials.  Ziegler’s refusal to take a position on many of the current issues facing the district pushes me away from supporting him.  While I understand his not wanting to take a stand having not been on the board and having not looked into the issues, I don’t like the thought of supporting someone who is running for office having not examined the issues.  At the very least I would expect a preliminary stance with the candidate’s current understanding of the facts.  As for Rakowski, I just don’t know as much about him as I would like. 

Dave Weigand has been involved in the district and frustrated with the board’s actions.  He has a business background and a proven willingness to ask the hard questions and expect real answers.  I like where he stands on the fiscal issues in the district.

I know Randy Marquardt the best of all the candidates.  We have met on numerous occasions for a variety of reasons.  He’s a very genuine man with a deliberative, thoughtful approach to issues.  Randy supported the Badger referendum and he came very close to convincing me to do the same.  His background in the building trades is also of great value given the maintenance and space issues in the district. 

I hope everyone has the opportunity to get out and vote for the candidate of their choice. 

One final note… there is a bit more at stake in this board election than most.  The teachers and TAX TO THE MAX chanters know it.  There are seven people on the board.  Right now, two of them are ostensibly fiscal conservatives.  The two incumbents who are up for election (reelection for one, first time for the other) have both been vocal about their support for more spending and higher taxes.  If two fiscal conservatives are elected this round, that leaves a tenuous and uncertain majority of fiscal conservatives on the board and an opportunity to put in place different board leadership.  Given the debacles of the past couple of years, new leadership is sorely needed.  The board members we elect couple a greater impact on the district than just their single votes would indicate.

Emergency Assistance Needed

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I need to learn how to play basketball by Monday.

Any and all advice would be appreciated.

Thank you.