Pulp Fiction

I just saw an advert on AMC that they will be airing Pulp Fiction at some point in the future (see how much I pay attention?).  I like Pulp Fiction.  It’s a good flick.  I can’t, however, see how it can be viewed on normal television.  Given the extent of violence, cussing, and other no-nos in the movie, how can it be viewed with any justice on normal TV?  It would be like watching Blazing Saddles on regular TV nowadays.  The entrails are left in a pile in the woods and all that is left if a lifeless carcass of its former self. 

Can’t Fix A Law that Isn’t a Law

So much for that idea.

The Senate Parliamentarian has ruled that President Barack Obama must sign Congress’ original health care reform bill before the Senate can act on a companion reconciliation package, senior GOP sources said Thursday.

The Senate Parliamentarian’s Office was responding to questions posed by the Republican leadership. The answers were provided verbally, sources said.

House Democratic leaders have been searching for a way to ensure that any move they make to approve the Senate-passed $871 billion health care reform bill is followed by Senate action on a reconciliation package of adjustments to the original bill. One idea is to have the House and Senate act on reconciliation prior to House action on the Senate’s original health care bill.

Information Republicans say they have received from the Senate Parliamentarian’s Office eliminates that option. House Democratic leaders last week began looking at crafting a legislative rule that would allow the House to approve the Senate health care bill, but not forward it to Obama for his signature until the Senate clears the reconciliation package.

BBC Looks at Open Carry in Wisconsin

Frequent commenter and rights defender, Nik Clark, is now internationally infamous (it’s BETTER than famous). 

Wisconsin Open Carry. Groups like this have been springing up all over the States in the last year and they’ve been making an impact in the last week or so, getting Starbucks in California to agree people should be allowed into their coffee shops carrying guns. The groups are made up of people who want to make a point about the Second Amendment right in the Constitution to bear arms, by bearing them openly. Some want to make a point and test whether or not private firms like shops and restaurants recognise that right.

The movement is slightly different in the state of Wisconsin where concealed guns are banned. Nick says wearing a gun in a visible holster is the only way he can carry a weapon legally and he wants others to be aware of their rights: he doesn’t want to confront but to convert.

“You have a right to self defence and open carry is a great deterrent. It’s about personal protection,” he says.

He’s a beefy guy, with bulging muscles, so I ask: Isn’t he rather intimidating when he’s armed as well?

“I’ve been open carrying for about a year and most people don’t notice, or some might make a comment. It’s a demonstration I am a law-abiding citizen, you have nothing to hide. Criminals never open carry.”

He says that his group respects property rights and if a shop doesn’t want their custom and they are asked to leave they are happy to do so: they don’t want to patronise that business. But he says most big companies know the law and have a policy that allows them to shop armed.

Kim says for her it is all about self protection: “I can guarantee if I am going to my car late at night and someone sees me carrying a gun they won’t make me a victim.”

But Nick says he is also making a point: “I want people to see me and have a level of comfort, to know that if they are out walking their dog it is OK to carry a gun, if they are walking to their car after work it is legal to carry a firearm.”

Earmark King Puts Restriction on Earmarks

Color me unimpressed.

U.S. Rep. Dave Obey, D-Wausau, announced today that the House Appropriations Committee will no longer approve earmarks directed to for-profit entities.

Obey, who chairs the Appropriations Committee, joined with incoming Defense Appropriations Subcommittee Chairman Norm Dicks, D-Wash., in announcing the plan. The lawmakers say the rule would have prevented 1,000 earmarks last year. In addition, the Appropriations Committee will now require an audit of at least 5 percent of non-profit earmarks to “ensure that earmarks go to their intended purposes and to prevent for-profits from masquerading as non-profits.”

Greece Gives Preview of America’s Future?

Could be.

Many of the same risky financial practices that now imperil the Greeks were at the center of the all-too-recent U.S. meltdown.

As with Greece, America’s national debt has been growing by leaps and bounds over the past decade, to the point where it threatens to swamp overall economic output. And in the U.S., as in Greece, a large portion of that debt is owed to foreign investors.

Not good, if these debt holders begin to wonder if they’ll be paid back. A foreign flight from U.S. Treasury securities could sow financial chaos in the United States, as happened when many investors lost faith in Greek bonds.

It’s something that could affect all Americans. The U.S. has never defaulted on a debt, and even the hint of such a possibility could send interest rates soaring and choke off a fragile recovery.

Kewaskum School Staff Not Happy With Custodial Staff

Do you know what’s great about this?

Concerns about the Kewaskum School District’s decision to outsource cleaning services for the community’s schools about a year and a half ago resurfaced when the School Board met Monday night.

  About 80 teachers and staff are estimated to have attended the meeting, where the members of the Kewaskum Auxiliary Personnel asked the board to revisit the subject.

  Among those at the meeting were Steve Backhaus, lead custodian at Kewaskum Middle School.

  Backhaus said members of the auxiliary decided to make a statement at Monday night’s meeting because a letter sent to the School Board and district administration in October about quality, safety, and other concerns related to the subcontracted custodial services was ignored.

  The seven-page letter identified “concerns relating to the quality of services provided by the subcontractor and the condition of equipment used by the subcontractor.”

  “We don’t mean to belittle the people who do the work,” Backhaus said. “It’s just not getting done right or it’s not done at all.”

If the services truly are that poor, they can fire the service and get another one.  Somehow, though, I’m a bit skeptical that it’s that bad. 

Kansas City Closing Schools

This is a good insight into how hard it is for government to cut things.

Superintendent John Covington called for the closing or consolidation of almost half of the schools in the Kansas City, Missouri, school district, and a school board voted Wednesday to approve the downsizing.

Covington calls it the “right-size” plan,” but many residents say it’s plain wrong.

A packed room of people watched the board make its historic move after weeks of debate and years of declining enrollment. Some parents voiced their anger, while some students cried.

Yeah, it sucks to close schools, but look at the facts:

Covington said the closures were the first phase of “right-sizing” a district where enrollments have plummeted from more than 35,000 in the 1999-2000 school year to about 17,000 in 2009-10.

They are at less than HALF of enrollment.  How can anyone justify keeping open the same number of school buildings except with emotional arguments?  They can’t.  While I appreciate a school board that is willing to make some hard choices here, the public needs to get a grip and realize that it makes absolutely no sense to maintain the same infrastructure for half of the student population. 

Birds of a Feather

Huh.

A federal judge has denied ex-Detroit councilwoman Monica Conyers’ request to withdraw her guilty plea in a corruption case and sentenced her to three years and one month in prison.

As guards cleared the courtroom Wednesday, Conyers yelled that she planned to appeal.

Turn On Your Lights

For cripes sake, people.  When it’s foggy and you can’t see more than a hundred yards, TURN ON YOUR LIGHTS! 

Morons… 

Poo-Eating Plant

Huh.

The largest meat-eating plant in the world is designed not to eat small animals, but small animal poo.

Botanists have discovered that the giant montane pitcher plant of Borneo has a pitcher the exact same size as a tree shrew’s body.

But it is not this big to swallow up mammals such as tree shrews or rats.

Instead, the pitcher uses tasty nectar to attract tree shrews, then ensures its pitcher is big enough to collect the feeding mammal’s droppings.

Details of the discovery are published in the journal New Phytologist.

Airlines Will Cancel Flights Rather Than Risk Fines

Yup.

Passengers may soon be seeing more cancellations on airport departure boards.

Several airlines, including Fort Worth-based American and Houston-based Continental, say they will cancel flights rather than risk paying stiff penalties for delaying passengers on the runway.

Continental’s CEO told investors Tuesday that the airline will opt to cancel flights rather than chance being fined.

Aviation consultant Denny Kelly expects other airlines to follow suit.

“I think all of them will cancel flights,” he said. “They’ll do it partially because they think they are going to punish passengers, and if they punish them, someone will get this legislation removed.”

Under new federal guidelines that take effect next month, airlines can be fined up to $27,500 per passenger if a plane is stuck on the tarmac for longer than three hours.

Gee, who could have predicted this?

Delays throughout the airport are several hours long.  The airlines don’t want to risk anyone staying out there too long, so they just cancel the flights

Sexual Predator Bill Up for Hearing Tomorrow

This isn’t cool.

Suburban Milwaukee leaders are mobilizing against a bill that would outlaw local ordinances that restrict where sex offenders can live.

A hearing on Assembly Bill 759 is set for Thursday before the state Assembly Committee on Corrections and the Courts.

Franklin Ald. Steve Olson said Tuesday that elected officials from Franklin, Greenfield, Cudahy and possibly other suburbs plan to attend the hearing.

Olson said he thinks the bill would result in Milwaukee sex offenders being released from prison and allowed to live in the suburbs.

“It’s an effort by some Milwaukee legislators to again pass something quickly, when nobody sees it, and put their problems on to other communities,” Olson said.

“Why should we accept Milwaukee’s, why should Milwaukee accept Franklin’s (sex offenders)?” he said. “It’s a matter of simple logic and fairness - take your own back.”

Franklin is among municipalities that restrict sex offenders from living in certain areas, such as a prescribed distance from schools.

The bill would prevent those municipalities from enforcing such ordinances and would prohibit any more such ordinances from being enacted.

Once again we have the state wanting to impose a blanket rule instead of letting different municipalities manage these things according to their own values.  It’s disappointing to see so many Republicans co-sponsoring this.  Local control, folks… dig it. 

Different Format for March 22nd School Board Meeting

Hmmmm…. where have I seen something like this before?

The third presentation of the 2010-11 proposed budget recommendations will be at the March 22 board meeting. District administrators and school board members have indicated they would like to see a large audience.

  The purpose of the School Board meeting, according to Ted Neitzke,, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, is to increase the community’s awareness of the school district’s budget — past, present and future — and to collect community feedback.

  Because the focus of the meeting is on collecting feedback, the format will be different than a typical board meeting, Neitzke said.

  The evening will begin with a budget presentation by Neitzke. After the presentation, community members will be split into large groups and put into classrooms. The size of the groups, Neitzke said, would depend upon attendance.

  If 300 people attended the meeting, for example, they would be divided into groups of 30 in 10 classrooms.

  Within the classrooms, people will be further divided into groups of five to six people Neitzke said.

  The small “focus” groups would be asked to provide feedback on a number of budget related issues. Feedback would then be collected by a facilitator and brought back to the school board.

  “The changed format will give the most people the most opportunities to have their voices heard,” Neitzke said. “Our district is very unique. There is no other school board in the state that is going out this early to ensure that the community understands the budget.”

Ah yes, I remember now.  It’s a variation of the Delphi Technique used by liberal activists for decades to build faux consensus.  I don’t like this format for a variety of reasons.  First, there is the opening for manipulation of the results.  If all of the groups are divided up and the administrator comes back and says “the majority did not want to cut X from the budget,” who can dispute it?  If your group was OK with cutting X, how do you know what the other groups thought about it?  How can you verify the administrator’s statement?  You can’t. 

Second, it is a process designed to exclude all but the most committed.  If it were a regular board meeting, then I could go and listen to the budget presentation, perhaps say my piece, and then leave if I have other commitments.  This format forces all attendees to commit to the evening.  That means that the passively interested won’t bother to attend because they don’t want to commit to the time and the folks with the most to lose or gain will dominate the process.  Who will be the most likely to take an entire evening to attend?  Take a guess. 

Third, this process filters the ideas that will boil up for the board to hear, and the filter will be applied by the school administration.  For example, if someone in Group #6 has a great idea that nobody else thought of, the board may never hear it because it didn’t develop into a “theme.”  Or if a theme develops of people saying “cut 10% of administration” and the administration considers that “unworkable,” then the input may be excluded from the final results. 

This method is a tried and true method to give the facilitators maximum control over the flow of information.  How they use that control should be of great concern to the citizens in this school district.

One more thing… the Superintendent is up for review this month.  Odds are about 20,000 to 1 that she will receive a raise. 

Keep tabs on health care

My column for the Daily News is online.  It’s called, “Keep tabs on health care.”  Here’s a portion:

Here’s where we are: The House Democrats won’t pass the Senate version of the bill because they don’t trust the Senate Democrats to pass a fix for it. The Senate Democrats won’t pass the fix because they don’t trust the House Democrats to pass the Senate version. It’s also problematic for the Senate Democrats to pass a fix for a bill that hasn’t been passed into law yet. President Obama is promising liberal House Democrats that they can vote for the Senate bill without a public option and they’ll “improve” it later even though the president has no ability to keep that promise with the current makeup of the Senate. A handful of pro-life House Democrats are refusing to pass the Senate version because it doesn’t include a ban on funding abortions. And all of the Democrats are refusing to scrap both bills and start over because they are afraid of being seen as unable to govern.

  Whew, got all that? There are some lessons here.

  First, the whole reason the Democrats are having so much trouble passing a bill is because it’s a steaming pile of, er, dreadful legislation that the public strongly opposes. It’s an election year. Many Democrats are looking at the polls and would like to remain in office after the election despite their leadership’s desire to sacrifice them on the altar of health care reform. Perhaps Democrats should learn a lesson about trying to shove through legislation that their constituents oppose.

  Second, huge pieces of legislation that dramatically change our relationship with government should be difficult to pass. Such gridlock is the result of the genius of our Founding Fathers. They built us a system where competing interests must align before major changes can happen. Such alignment hasn’t happened yet in the health care debate, which is a warning that it shouldn’t pass.

  Third, just look at how little trust there is between all of these politicians and remember that they know each other better than we know them. If they don’t trust each other, why should we trust them with our health care?

Van Hollen Charges Five With Felony Vote Fraud

Good for the AG.

Five Wisconsin residents have been charged with criminal counts of voter fraud in the November 2008 general election, state Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen announced today.

Two of those charged - Maria Miles, 36, of Milwaukee, and Kevin Clancy, 26, of Racine - worked for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), the embattled community organizing group.

“The complaint alleges that Miles and Clancy submitted multiple voter registration applications for the same individuals, and also were part of a scheme in which they and other (special registration deputies)  registered each other to vote multiple times in order to meet voter registration quotas imposed by ACORN,” the Van Hollen release says.

Both were charged with one felony count.