We Are The Village Green Preservation Society

The Register's Letters section is too funny today:

Over the last several months we have witnessed further efforts by the Bush administration to control the media through the actions of Kenneth Tomlinson, past chair of the board of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. They have waged a political ideological attack on PBS television and National Public Radio.

Pressure for a more conservative format has been exerted on the programmers of PBS and NPR. Tomlinson secretly hired a private party to monitor PBS (specifically the program "Now" with Bill Moyers) for liberal bias. He then refused to release the results. Perhaps the report agreed with previous surveys that concluded public broadcasting is considered "fair and balanced" by the majority of its listeners?

Even though some of the budget for the CPB was restored in the House, we will no doubt see further efforts to control the programming of PBS and NPR and to cut their funding ("House Vote Reverses Broadcast Budget Cuts," June 24).

The CPB was set up in 1967 for the public good. It was meant to shield part of the broadcasting world from political influence and to give a voice to all sides of an issue. We need PBS and NPR as never before. We must not allow this administration to dismantle it.
-Jo Rod,
Ames.

I remember 1967. Back then almost everybody had a black and white television with a dial to change the channels. And you had three stations to watch if you were lucky enough to aim that expensive antenna on your roof in the correct direction or get those cheap friggin "rabbit ears" to work.

I don't know if "Jo Rod" (An excellent porn star name - Ed.) has been in a coma for the past 38 years, but choices have expanded since those early days. You can get several stations in Des Moines with a simple antenna - and all in living color! For under $15 a month you can get over 20 stations via Mediacom's cheapest service. If you want a couple hundred channels, you can get a dish or digital cable.

The idea that CPR was formed to "shield part of the broadcasting world from political influence" is complete bullshit. And such a notion is funny with taxpayer dollars involved and political winds constantly blowing back and forth. Also, back in the 1960s, you had a bunch of nanny-state elitist douchebags who were upset about network television programming and wanted to make sure that Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Hooterville Junction will no longer be so damned relevant.


Meanwhile, Gene Turner of Tripoli offers up this preposterous nonsense:

We have a near-monopolistic corporate media that cheerleads us into war with little or no journalistic effort to counter the "fixed" intelligence being spoon-fed them by the Bush administration. A corporate media that does little more than regurgitate the information offered it by the administration. That is when the administration isn't actively buying off "journalists" to sell its propaganda or producing its own canned-news segments for local stations.

Watergate would never have been exposed under this current system or, if exposed, wouldn't have gotten the coverage to topple the president. The secretive Cheney/Bush White House has nothing to fear from the compliant mainstream press of 2005.

Now we have a new Republican assault on public television and radio to reduce it to just one more corporately dominated media outlet - $1.25 per person per year to support PBS and NPR. They don't even want us to have that.

Who's us?

And didn't the late Mrs McDonald bequeath $200 million to NPR a couple of years ago?

Gene sounds like the kind of guy who thinks Pacifca Radio News is too right-wing.


Finally, Jan Fleming of West Des Moines offers this:

It is vitally important for society to have the option of public television. It represents the best that is in our culture. It is a huge warehouse of enlightenment, inspiration, education and objective reporting on current affairs.

It's "the best" you see. We're the best! We're more enlightened, inspired, educated, and objective than you stupid fucking Fox News lemmings.

Oddly enough, I see a lot of that warehouse being rebroadcast all over cable. Surely that is not being done for the mere enlightenment, inspiration, and education of the elitist douchebags who have cable or a dish, right? So who pockets that money, eh, Jan?

All together now:

We are the village green preservation society
God save donald duck, vaudeville and variety
We are the desperate dan appreciation society
God save strawberry jam and all the different varieties
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
We are the draught beer preservation society
God save mrs. mopp and good old mother riley
We are the custard pie appreciation consortium
God save the george cross and all those who were awarded them
We are the sherlock holmes english speaking vernacular
Help save fu manchu, moriarty and dracula
We are the office block persecution affinity
God save little shops, china cups and virginity
We are the skyscraper condemnation affiliate
God save tudor houses, antique tables and billiards
Preserving the old ways from being abused
Protecting the new ways for me and for you
What more can we do
God save the village green.

Update: Come back on July 5 for a very special column. Regular old full-throttle, clutch-engaged blogging resumes on July 7th.

Biggest lie of the year: I'm on vacation until then unless something even crazier comes along. No, really, the weekend is supposed to be perfect. Must. Turn. Off. Cell. Phone. Resist. Internet. You. Loser. Addict.

Pierre Pierce: Welfare Bum

Excellent reporting from the Daily Iowan:

While taxpayers pick up most of former Hawkeye basketball star Pierre Pierce's rent tab, his parents have shelled out $15,000 to date in attorney fees for their son's legal troubles, according to a court document filed Wednesday.

The affidavit of financial condition filed Wednesday indicates that Pierce's parents have paid the sum to employ an attorney. Pierce also wrote that he was $3,000 in debt. He filed the same affidavit form on June 16 but wrote that neither he nor someone else had employed or paid for an attorney.

Pierce, 2402 Bartelt Road Apt. 2C, pays $10 in rent each month for his Pheasant Ridge apartment, the document indicates. Pheasant Ridge is a development providing low-income housing under the Housing and Urban Development's appropriation bill, which "is all taxpayer dollars," said Dale Gray, a HUD public-affairs officer.

I don't know about you, but I'm absoloutly furiours about this.

Maybe I'll go steal a cell phone and call Tom Harkin's office 239 times.

The least Pierce could do is take his cache of stolen cell phones and go crash on Brian Ferentz's couch.

Did Cedar Rapids City Councilman David Zahn Forget Some Paperwork?

Via the brother-in-law, who called me on my cell phone tonight knowing full well I am on vacation (Get yer own blog, bro - Ed.). This is from KCRG TV9 in Cedar Rapids:

Johnson County Sheriff's deputies are investigating a weekend motorcycle accident that injured a five year old boy. Cedar Rapids Public Safety Commissioner Dave Zahn admitted to me today he was the man operating the motorcycle.

By all accounts this was an accident- the family, Zahn, and the neighbors say it was unfortunate- but not intentional. Zahn says his motorcycle ran over the legs of five year old Mason Hulse on Saturday in Johnson County.

The boy has been hospitalized since the accident, and might be there for another week.

This certainly sounds odd:

The accident happened in a driveway. The homeowner was hosting the party to honor National Guard members preparing to go to war. Zahn says he was about to leave the party. He says he was there for 20 minutes and wasn't actually driving forward when the accident happened.

Zahn said, "I was in an idling state when a child came running between the vehicles and ran into my front tire which of course startled me, hit the bike and then I disengaged the clutch and the bike leaned, lurched forward a little bit."

Ummmm, what was Zahn thinking with people and children around? Zahn must be a complete retard when it comes to operating a motorcycle. It's amazing that the guy doesn't fall over every time he stops at a traffic light.

Oh, but there's more:

There was no record of this accident until 11:20 this [Wednesday] morning. No accident report, no incident report, no record this ever happened until we started making calls.

The Johnson County Sheriff's Department didn't even know a five year old was struck by a motorcycle until KCRG told them yesterday.

Zahn's bio says he became a cop in 1989 and was one until he was elected Safety Commissioner in 2000. Zahn also planned to go back to his old job following the election of a new city government in November. Nevertheless, he should know the law.

And with 10 seconds of Googling I was able to find this PDF from the State.

You can also look at the Iowa Code:

321.266 Reporting accidents.

1. The driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to or death of any person shall immediately by the quickest means of communication give notice of such accident to the sheriff of the county in which said accident occurred, or the nearest office of the Iowa state patrol, or to any other peace officer as near as practicable to the place where the accident occurred.

2. The driver of a vehicle involved in an accident resulting in injury to or death of any person, or total property damage to an apparent extent of one thousand dollars or more shall, within seventy-two hours after the accident, forward a written report of the accident to the department. However, such report is not required when the accident is investigated by a law enforcement agency.

3. Every law enforcement officer who, in the regular course of duty, investigates a motor vehicle accident of which report must be made as required in subsections 1 to 3 of this section, either at the time of and at the scene of the accident or thereafter by interviewing participants or witnesses shall, within twenty-four hours after completing such investigation, forward a written report of such accident to the department.

You've got to wonder if J. Patrick White, the Johnson County Attorney, is going to roll over and wimp out on this one. I'll bet you anything he lets Zahn off. Cops always seem to be a protected class, as are politicians. In Iowa City, cops can just go and shoot sculptors like Eric Shaw, who was alone in his studio talking on the phone, and White refused to bring charges against the cop.

Zahn's already been in a lot of hot water recently. This is from KWWL a couple weeks ago:

Cedar Rapids Public Safety Commissioner David Zahn is suing a Linn County supervisor and the county for slander.

The lawsuit, filed late Tuesday, says Supervisor Linda Langston accused Zahn of sexually harrassing a city employee, and of stalking an un-named television anchor while he was a police officer.

The suit says both accusations are false and Langston was mad at Zahn because she was not chosen for leadership roles on the Bluestem Solid Waste Agency board.

Zahn wants an unspecified amount of money from Langston and from the county.

OK, let me get this straight. According to Zahn, Langston is mad that she wasn't made the head of the local garbage board so she spread some alleged rumors about him.

Who knows? Politics can get rough and mean even at the local level.

Zahn could be right in both instances (essentially meaning he's a shitty motorcycle idler and he didn't mess with da ladies), but he's still got a lot of explaining to do for not filing that accident report in time.


Update: Got another call from the brother-in-law. He taped the news and played it back to me over the phone. The reporterette said on the 10pm newscast that Zahn filed the paperwork 93 hours after the accident happened. 93 hours after the accident happening on Saturday would be today (Wednesday). She also said that while there's an investigation going on, it's unlikely that J. Patrick White, coddler of police criminals, would bring forth any charges. Big surprise.

The report also said that the hospital which treated the kid, Mercy in Cedar Rapids, didn't report the incident either. Nice work, big hospital. Did you have too many 5 year olds that were run into by motorcycles this past week and ya just forgot? Time for somebody to be on the receiving end of a Hershman Rectal Speculum, if you ask me.

Felon Voting In Iowa Roundup

Radio Iowa has the best stuff. This is from Monday:

Leaders in the Iowa Legislature have deadlocked over whether felons who've done their time and completed their parole should be able to vote. Governor Vilsack has announced he will restore voting rights to felons who've completed the terms of their parole.

Republican House Speaker Christopher Rants of Sioux City today tried but failed to get the Legislative Council to formally ask Vilsack to deny voting rights to those who've failed to pay their court fines or pay restitution to their victims.

"I believe that paying your debt to society is not the same as just having served your sentence," Rants says. "I believe that paying your debt to society goes one step further and that includes paying restitution to the victim."

Eight members of the Legislative Council backed the resolution Rants offered but eight voted against it -- a tie that means it failed to pass. House Democrat Leader Pat Murphy of Dubuque ridiculed Rants. "It's nothing but two-ply toilet paper," Murphy says. "It's a resolution that doesn't mean anything, that's non-binding, that says 'Governor, please don't do this.'"

Rants says Murphy's comments are offensive. "I think victims would take issue with that statement," Rants says. "I think victims' rights and what victims have owed to them is worth a lot more than toilet paper. I think that's an unfortunate use of words on his part." Murphy rejects that."This resolution doesn't mean anything," Murphy says. "It's non-binding and (asks) the governor to do something which he will ignore anyway." Murphy says the governor has the authority to restore voting rights to felons, and if Rants objects, then he should run for governor and do it differently.

Here's Pat Murphy's page at the Iowa General Assembly web site.

Speaking of toilet paper, "Two-Ply" Murphy co-sponsored House Resolution 18 during the 2005 session, which was A Resolution urging the Iowa congressional delegation to oppose restructuring the Social Security Trust Fund to create private accounts that reduce guaranteed benefits.

If the Ass Wipe doesn't like how Congress may change Social Security, then he should run for Congress, don't ya think?

What a hypocrite. (And a dildo. Remember that Murphy was a co-sponsor of the 25% dildo tax - Ed.)

It's amazing to see Democrats coming out in favor of the automatic premature restoration of voting rights for felons who have not completely paid their restitution to their victims. They don't even want criminals to pay their debt to society before getting their voting rights back!

And Rants, who's an idiot, had not thought about Vilsack pulling such a scam with this executive order. The Republican "leadershit" in the Iowa Legislature is almost as bad and worthless as the criminal-loving Democrats.

Meanwhile, the Daily Hottie has an editorial about this issue. You can just imagine which way it goes:

Under the current law, felons must finish paying restitution before their voting rights are restored. The new policy will still require these payments to be made but does not restrict the felon from voting while they pay off the debts.

Victim advocates argue that to ensure payments, restitution should be paid in full before voting rights are restored. However, there are steps other than revoking the right to vote that could effectively ensure compliance in this area. It's also hard to grasp the purpose of using voting rights as an incentive to pay restitution more expeditiously.

Wow, talk about bending over.

What are the steps other than revoking the right to vote disallowing restoration of citizenship rights to ensure compliance in this area? Got any examples? You college boys with your numbers ought to have lots of examples.

Then there's this:

To be fair, this decision is not all about the rights of convicted felons. There's certainly political calculation behind it as well. Vilsack's action will add more than 50,000 new voters that will probably be more likely to vote for Democrats. This could make a significant difference in elections, because Iowa continues to be closely divided politically.

According to the latest voter-registration figures, Republicans hold a slight advantage over Democrats, with 610,000 registered Republicans versus 606,000 Democrats. More than 50,000 new voters could tip the balance in many state elections, and this is undoubtedly one of the reasons many Republicans have opposed the measure.

But by questioning Vilsack's political motives without confronting the merits of the policy, Republicans will end up looking more interested in maintaining their own political advantage at the expense of ensuring the basic right to vote.

That's rich. What a load of crap. The Daily Idiots are going to blame the Republicans for this? How do the Idiots even know which party might be at an advantage with this issue? Did the Democrats do some internal polling to come up with this idea? If anything, the trend over the past 20 years has been towards more registered independents in Iowa (PDF).

As I said last November, I don't have any problem with felons voting once they've paid their debt to society (except for those convicted of voter fraud) - just so long as they've paid their debt to society (which includes victim restitution). Maybe the Democrats and radical lefties think I'm a jaded right-winga when it comes to this position, but really I think it's quite moderate and sensible. How come so many Democrats seem to have lost their freaking minds about this?

Meanwhile the Register's Letters section is full on this issue today. I liked the Gilbert Cranberg smackdown of David Yepsen's recent speculation about how felons will vote. Until somebody provides proof that felons vote one way or the other, keep your yobs shut.

The best letter is by David Baird of Adel:

The June 21 editorial, "The Right Move on Voting Rights," and Rekha Basu's June 22 column are spinning like crazy to make a flawed and calculated political decision appear to be for the right reasons. The current measures in place to restore voting rights are extreme, but Gov. Tom Vilsack's executive decision is even more extreme. It smacks of pandering.

I don't recall the governor working with the Iowa Legislature to find a way to ease the burden on convicted felons to earn back the right to vote. Just doing the time for the crime isn't enough to be given back that right. By their actions, convicted felons placed themselves outside civilized society.

Society deserves the right to place reasonable restrictions on restoring full rights to those who violate the rights of others. A decision making it easier for those who are truly working their way back into society to become full participants would be the right thing to do.

Giving blanket restoration will not make some predatory criminals model citizens. Issues of recidivism, nature of the crime and restitution to victims not resolved by this decision should be a factor in regaining full rights.

Vilsack does not appear to protect the rights of the victims, but instead appears to pander to the extreme elements of the Iowa Democrat Party. Does potentially adding 50,000 felons as voters to the roll of Democrats make Iowa a better place?

To me, this is a very sensible and moderate letter. It's not exactly the Code of Hammurabi that's being changed.

Mr Baird's suggestion that Vilsack is pandering may be off a bit. Personally, I believe this is his way of making amends with the "national" Democrats for signing that "English-only" law in Iowa a few years back. Vilsack clearly has his eye on a cabinet post after 2008 if Ms Hillary wins the White House.

Update I: And don't miss the Iowa Ennui Blog's post on this matter yesterday.


Update II: The perfect letter:

To quote "Airplane" - I GUESS STATE29 PICKED THE WRONG WEEK TO STOP SNIFFING AIRPLANE GLUE. Dude, step away from the keyboard & have some fun. You've earned it. Iowa will be just as fucked up on July 9 as it is today, and you can pick up where you left off after a brief respite. Besides, you've gotta save your strength to fisk Rekha's upcoming "Why All You Racists Deserve the Hate You're Getting From the Third World" July Fourth column.

You're right.

I'll be in Door County tomorrow, but I promise not to look.

More Proof The Register Hates America

Wow, just when you think things couldn't get any crazier at the Des Moines Register, how about this piece of propaganda by Register stooge "reporter" Mary Challender on Rachel Corrie, the dead terrorist sympathizer and America-hater who lost a battle with a bulldozer.

Corrie's parents are on their never-ending "martyrdom" tour, attempting to get publicity in every newspaper in America staffed with useful idiots.

The Register participates in the most disgusting way by publishing a more "softened" photo of Radical Rachel rather than the picture that made her infamous:



If you haven't cancelled your subscription to the Register, this past week's editorials and this article is a good reason to start.

How can the Register's advertisers continue to support a business that publishes one-sided propaganda about a young woman who hated America yet who loved and helped the people who wanted to blow up innocent Israeli men, women, and children?

Update I: Check out another one-sided piece of propaganda about Rachel Corrie by Daily Idiot "reporter" Patrick Davis. Disgusting.

"Other" Background: OpinionJournal.com, Think-Israel.org, and much more at Wikipedia.

The Register Editorial Board Are Assholes

Screw the vacation for a while.

This editorial by the Register is just outrageous:

We have just one question for people who disagree with our editorials.

Why do you hate America?

Pretty good comeback, eh?

We're trying to modernize our operation. The editorial page's fuddy-duddy old techniques of persuasion - marshaling the facts, trying to make a logical argument - are way behind the times. The new mode of persuasion is ad hominem attack to squelch even the tiniest dissent.

We take our cue from the Bush administration, which has elevated to an art form the technique of deflecting criticism by attacking the critic.

The other day, for instance, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin said descriptions of the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo sounded like what you might expect from a totalitarian government.

The White House immediately accused Durbin of doing "a real disservice to our men and women in uniform."

Of course, Durbin did no such thing. His remarks included a poor choice of metaphors (for which he apologized), but his criticism was not of the troops, it was of the administration. By accusing Durbin of disrespecting the troops, the administration neatly avoided answering the criticism of itself.

Poor metaphors?

I guess the Register Editorial Board simply agreed with what Durbin said.

No wonder, they hate America.

And what could be more American than property rights?

Well, according to the Register Editorial Board, a local government that's been bought-and-paid-for by giant corporations (most of whom are probably receiving some form of "fiscally prudent" taxpayer-financed corporate welfare that the Register endorses), knows best:

It is frightening to think the government could take your home (even if it pays market value) to make room for, say, a big-box retail store. Yet, a hard-and-fast rule that prohibits condemnation for economic development would stifle renewal of struggling communities.

So... government knows best, but only if they pay you market value - even if you don't want to sell - and especially if the project is so that the government can collect more tax money off the land - but even more so if a private company is receiving corporate welfare from the taxpayers in order to build the project.

Did I get that right?

And does this property look like slums?

Finally, how about this ridiculous editorial from yesterday's newspaper concerning the death penalty:

Killing a killer accomplishes nothing.

The victims will not be brought back to life. The families of the victims will continue to grieve. It will not deter others from committing crimes. In the long run, the death penalty will bring more media attention to Honken and Johnson, something neither deserves.

If these two criminals are executed, the United States will not be a better place. Two more people will be dead. And this time the blood will stain the hands of the U.S. government.

But it's OK if the government decides to let you kill your unborn child? (Folks, the writer's just making a point. The writer actually believes in legalized abortion in the first trimester. - Ed.)

Or Terri Schiavo?

Government knows best. Whether it's with your property or your life. That's the Register's statist/communist mantra.

Unless, of course, you've taken a family, executed them, and buried them in a field to protect your illegal drug operation.

Or if you're an America-hating terrorist on foreign soil, acting as a combatant.

Or you slit a mother's throat and then killed her 5 children with a hammer.

Or you've kidnapped a 10 year old girl that your brother allegedly sexually abused, then you sexually abuse her some more before killing her.

Did I get that right?


Update: Check out Iowa Voice's reaction to the first editorial. Random has a big post. Iowa Ennui mentions it.

Iowa Ennui Blog

If you're not reading the Iowa Ennui blog, start.

The Senator From al-Inois

Mark Steyn's column in the Sun-Times concerning Senator Dickhead Durbin's obscene remarks last week in the Senate should be mandatory reading.

What a shame that Durbin said all that crap after a rather excellent speech by Tom Harkin concerning renewable energy. Harkin's speech should have gotten all the good press, while Durbin should have kept his trap shut.


Related: Every Tom, Dick, and Adolf

Iowahawk: From the Desk of Senator Dick

Much Later Update: Also read this Steyn piece from the NY Sun.

Father's Day In Iowa City

They do things a little different over in Iowa City.

A couple days ago the Press-Citizen had this story about a busy mom who has hired an au pair to raise her daughter (no mention of where the father is).

Now comes this, the Press-Citizen's "touching" story for Father's Day:

Barry, who turned 30 years old on Wednesday, is spending his second Father's Day locked inside Oakdale prison. The recovering methamphetamine addict is one of more than 3,100 inmate dads in Iowa; his boys are among their estimated 9,300 children.

He abused drugs on-and-off for eight years, for as long as he was a father. The pain and hurt he said he feels and has caused provides a glimpse inside a growing Iowa epidemic.

"My addiction put me behind bars," he once wrote. "It took my children away, my life away, and everything I loved away. As I sit here in prison I have a lot of time to think about my past and the damage I was creating."

Incarcerated the past 21 months, Barry has gained his sobriety and -- thanks to upstart programs within Iowa's prisons -- is starting to become the dad he and others thought he was.

This story is about Barry's journey in fatherhood and, through the Long Distance Dads and Stories from Dad programs at the Iowa Medical and Classification Center, how he and other fathers have gained a deeper appreciation for today.

Barry's world came undone the morning of Sept. 2, 2003. Actually, his world came undone several months before when the drugs took over, but Sept. 2 was when it all caught up with him.

He was high when the authorities came to his home for a probation visit that morning. He had prior meth and burglary convictions, court records show, and they found meth lab-making materials in the garage. They cuffed him and left him sitting on his porch in his boxer briefs.

Do an Iowa Courts Search in Trial Court of "Barry Jay Wilson" born on 6/15/1975 from all counties and you'll find at least 35 different charges against him over the years, mostly in Johnson and Henry counties. From drugs to burglary with aggravation to excessive speeding to operating with an expired license to intoxication and on and on and on.

Nice job profiling a complete and utter shitbag on Father's Day, Press Shitizen.


Somewhat related: Rotten "Parents"

Marv Hain Jr Alert

My brother-in-law in Marion emailed me about a letter in the Cedar Rapids Gazette today by Marv Hain Jr of Coralville. I called him back and said scan the damn thing and email it so I can transcribe the words, so he did. Here it is:

Reasons Republicans support the slaughter in Iraq:

1. Unconditional support for their "team." It doesn't matter how many reasons against the killing of innocent masses are pointed out (e.g., no weapons of mass destruction, no connection to 9/11 terrorist attacks, a repeat of the mistakes leaned by Vietnam), Republicans seek power and control over people's lives for their gain. As long as there are spin masteres to rally the team's immoral mission, their supporters will listen.

2. Complacency. Many people have responded to covert forms of social conditioning, inherent in a capitalistic society in which immoral people have been allowed to obtain too much power. The result: a focus on their own desires, and the ability to ignore the suffering of others. This group is largely made up of Republicans, who place more emphasis on competition for materialism and obtaining the "American Dream" than they do on equity and the welfare of their fellow human beings, nationally and worldwide.

3. Racism. How can so many people be complacent regarding the slaughter of innocent people who are only trying to live their lives as we are? They aren't white Americans, they aren't like us, so they are seen by Republicans as inferior and deserving of their fate as victims of U.S. greed in a war for oil.

4. Evil. Yes, amazingly a large number of people supporting war still believe in "white man's burden," and imperialism. Evil is the foundation of the so-called Bush "administration."

Marv Hain Jr., Coralville

Talk about deranged. We've profiled Mr Hain's letters in the past.

The odd thing is that the Cedar Rapids Gazette publishes Hain's letters on almost a monthly basis. Why do newspaper editors insist on reprinting the same recycled "Hate Bush" rambles by the same people every month? And to be fair, a lot of newspapers printed similar "Hate Clinton" missives during the 1990s.

Opinion page editors usually have a policy concerning "serial" letter writers who pen basically the same bullshit every time. It's usually to discourage one-trick ponies and the obviously deranged from ongoing newspaper glory. (That's why blogs were invented! Hee hee... -Ed.)

So why does the Cedar Rapids Gazette allow Marv Hain Jr of Coralville essentially a monthly "Hate Bush" and "Hate Republican" column? It's time to close the door on Hain's bullshit. I think we get his point loud and clear.

Voting Rights For Felons To Be Restored In Iowa On July 4th

From the Des Moines Register:

Thousands of convicted felons who have completed their sentences will have their right to vote restored by Gov. Tom Vilsack under an executive order he plans to sign on Independence Day.

"Iowans who are living, working and paying taxes in Iowa are denied the right to vote because of their prior conviction," Vilsack, a Democrat, said Friday in announcing his plan to essentially provide automatic restoration of citizenship rights.

"The disenfranchisement of these offenders has a disproportionate impact on Democrats minorities in our communities. . . . This directive will provide the most important opportunity to those who need it most - the right to vote," he said.

Here's the press release that Vilsack sent out.

Nobody is being disenfranchised, Governor Vilsack. You're lying. Felons follow a process for restoration of their citizenship rights.

Last November, former Gov Terry Branstad explained the process in a letter to the Register following a Rekha Basu column on the subject.

Here's the process of restoration of citizenship rights. It's initiated by the felon to the Iowa Parole Board:

205�14.3(914) Executive clemency applications.

14.3(3) Restoration of citizenship.

a. A person convicted of a criminal offense may apply for restoration of citizenship at any time following the discharge of the person�s sentence.

b. A person applying for restoration of citizenship shall submit the Executive Clemency Application form to the governor. This form may be obtained from the governor's office or from the board. The governor shall obtain a recommendation regarding restoration of citizenship from the board.

I tend to agree with Branstad's defense of the process, although it would be interesting to know of cases, if any, where felons petitioned for restoration of voting rights and had them denied in the past. If there haven't been any, Vilsack's use of the term disenfranchisement is 100% bogus.

The Register article typically pushes all the lefty buttons: disenfranchisement, minorities, and quoting far-out kooky black embarrassments like Ako Abdul-Samad and Wayne Ford. If you don't know anything about Samad or Ford, click through the links in their names for what they really believe. Rekha Basu is probably having an orgasm over it, so expect to see a couple of columns milking the issue.

Some concerns:

Should a felon convicted of voter fraud be granted their "rights" back automatically?

Should felons who are sex offenders or those who traffic in child pornography be granted the right to vote again? More often than not the polling place is a school.

And if Vilsack, the Democrats, the Muslim apologists, and those who want illegals to have driver's licenses in Iowa with fake Mexican ID cards want only voting rights automatically restored, what about other rights?

If a felon has paid his debt to society, why can't he own and possess a handgun automatically upon completion of his sentence, probation, and payment of any fines? Want to explain that, Vilsack? Rekha?

Meanwhile, Governor Vilsack is against any law that would require voters to submit a photo ID prior to voting or to outlaw the practice of requesting or delivering absentee ballots other than the individual voter and the post office. And too many Democrats in the Iowa Legislature are pushing bills in favor of same day voter fraud.

Wow, talk about handing the Republicans a huge issue to beat the shit out of Democrats with in the next election. You can almost see the TV ad write itself:

Should Roger Bentley have his right to vote automatically restored upon release?

Pierre Pierce's Lawyer Welfare

From Hawk Central:

Former University of Iowa basketball player Pierre Pierce wants the state to pick up part of his defense costs against charges that he assaulted his former girlfriend last winter.

According to a financial affidavit filed in Dallas County District Court, Pierce claims he is living on $170 a month. Pierce, 22, who is unemployed, said he is paying $10 monthly in rent for his Iowa City apartment and does not have any money in checking or savings accounts.

The affidavit is part of a request to have the state pay a portion of his legal bills.

Pierce claimed he spends about $50 for food each month and pays about $60 in utilities, while spending about $50 on transportation expenses, the document shows.

Defense attorney Alfredo Parrish has asked that the state pay for costs associated with defense depositions, subpoenas and expert witnesses in Pierce's criminal case, even though Pierce's family has retained Parrish privately.

Laughable. It better not get approved.

Iowahawk Turns Dick Into Dresden

Iowahawk is back with some letters from Dick Durbin.


Related: Every Tom, Dick, and Adolf

Those "Troublesome" Stay-At-Home Moms

Random has a post today concerning a snarky fisking she did of a piece by ISU student Sasha Kemmet in the DM Register a few weeks ago. Ms Kemmet found Random's entry and made a reply in the comments section.

At the risk of being offensive and saying "You're 19 years old, what the fuck do you know about working women and stay-at-home moms?" (Ooops - Ed.), I think Ms Kemmet's reply to Random's snarky fisking speaks for itself when it comes to idiotic sophomoric pseudo-feminist soapboxing:

Again, with the mother staying at home, I have no problem with women being stay-at-home moms, but I believe it is troublesome when it become (sic) a trend. It brings into question why women don't feel they can work in the workplace and at home, just like men.

So if too many women decide that it's more important to stay home and raise their babies and young children rather than farm them out to daycare and au pairs in order to pursue a career then it's "troublesome." Right?

What a joke.

Listen, Ms Kemmet, why don't you get your precious engineering degree, get a job, get married or find a turkey baster, become a Supermom ™, move to a brand-new $350,000 house on a cul-de-sac in Waukee or Adel, drive around in your Lexus RX330h, and then you can find "the best" daycare and "the best" schools for your kids, and you can prove how much fucking better you are than everybody else, especially those "troublesome" stay-at-home moms who live in the shitty part of town. All right?

This is typical of the kind of far-out nonsense the Register has been dumping on readers lately, like Heidi Schnackenberg's recent columns. Middle fingers to them all.

Gay Divorce Ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court

From the Des Moines Register:

The Iowa Supreme Court today rejected a lawsuit by a group of conservative lawmakers and others to overturn a northwest Iowa district judge's ruling that dissolved a lesbian couple's out-of-state civil union.

The justices said the group had no legal standing to challenge the decree by Judge Jeffrey Neary and therefore no right to intervene.

Chief Justice Louis Lavorato's ruling did not address the issue of whether Neary erred when he dissolved the Vermont civil union.

The justices agreed with opponents of the group's lawsuit, who argued that "many people have strong opinions about marriage, as they do about divorce, child custody, zoning and many other issues ... if everyone were allowed to petition for simply because of ideological objections or strongly held philosophical beliefs ... then there would be no limits to the petitions brought.”

"Iowa law has never permitted such unwarranted interference in other peoples' cases,” the argument continued. “Simply having an opinion does not suffice for standing."

The ruling apparently allows Neary's order and the "divorce" to stand although the state does not recognize same-sex marriages.

Steve "Hypocrite" King and his "conservative" gang were trying to create law with the lawsuit. Wait, I thought only liberals did that sort of stuff...

I guess my prediction sort-of wins.

If you don't want gays and lesbians getting divorced in Iowa then send a bill through the Iowa Legislature that says so, although you'd think those who oppose "gay marriage" would certainly approve of "gay divorce" - right?


Update: Random has more, including a link to the decision.


Second update: So I suppose if we all got together and initiated a lawsuit against Vilsack and the Iowa Legislature over "fiscally prudent" taxpayer-financed corporate welfare because we believe in promoting traditional tax policy, it would be thrown out.

Caught In Harper's Ferry

The odd story of Roger LaBarge and Kathy Rhowe, on the run from criminal charges in Indiana for 17 years, and living very publicly with a new last name and their own child in Harper's Ferry, is worth reading up on:

Indianapolis Star: Indiana fugitives caught after 17 years

La Crosse Tribune: Family's secret surprises Iowa river town

Iowa DNR to seek protections for Woolly Mammoths and Pachycephalosaurs

Just kidding, even though Pachycephalosaur and Woolly Mammoths have been discovered in Iowa.

Er, dead ones, that is.

From Radio Iowa:

The re-emergence of mountain lions and bears in Iowa has raised concerns and prompted discussion about how humans and the animals can safely live together. The Natural Resources Commission discussed putting the animals on the endangered species list -- but now is looking at another option.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources wildlife research supervisor Terry Little says they'll seek what's called “furbearer” status for the two animals. He says putting them on the list would protect them from indiscriminate killing unless the natural resources commission created a season for hunting them. Little says the furbearer status at the same time keeps options open for dealing with the animals.

This probably makes sense, until somebody gets eaten.

Father's Day Is Sunday, So Where's The Father?

Why bother having a child if you can't devote any time to her?

Every Tom, Dick, and Adolf

Dick Turban Durbin, the moonbat Senator from Illinois, is in hot water for saying this on Tuesday night on the Senate floor:

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here [Guantanamo]--I almost hesitate to put them in the RECORD, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold. ..... On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control [at Guantanamo], you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

Hitler used extremely loud rap music? Or was it Stalin? Perhaps it was Pol Pot.

Dammit, I can't remember anything from history class. All I know is that Vanilla Ice was on Hit Me Baby One More Time the other night and his shit is so old school.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're probably saying, "What does this have to do with Iowa?" Well, guess who was talking right before Dick went off his meds? Yep, that's right, none other than Iowa Senator Tom Harkin.

But Tom Harkin was not in moonbat mode. He gave a fantastic speech about renewable energy that deserves kudos, huzzahs, props, and much love: (this is all from the Congressional Record, which was done via a search and thus the Thomas site generates temp pages so a perm link isn't possible right now)

Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, this is, indeed, an exciting time and moment. We have an 8-billion-gallon national renewable fuel standard that is going to be part of the Senate Energy bill. A previous bill I sponsored with Senator Lugar and 18 other Senators serves as much of the basis for what we now have before us. This amendment takes us a bold step closer to improving the Nation's energy security, domestic and farm economy, and our environment...

We have a choice. We can stand by, feed our addiction to foreign oil, or we can make a decisive shift now toward clean domestic renewable fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel. This will allow us to wean the U.S. economy from its dangerous level of dependence on foreign oil that is a clear and present danger to our economy and national security.

The renewable fuels standard will more than double the amount of ethanol and biodiesel in our fuel supply by 2012. It will firmly commit our Nation to clean, secure, diversified sources of domestic energy, not in some distant future but immediately in the years ahead.

Domestic ethanol production grew 21 percent in 2004 to more than 3.4 billion gallons. I might just add, ethanol was introduced seamlessly in California and New York, where it helped to buffer rising crude oil prices.

I know my good friend from New York [Sen Schumer] had to leave, but I have since found out that right now there are two large production ethanol plants planned for construction in the State of New York; two big ones, one that is 100 million gallons a year, the other a bit smaller, being constructed right now in New York and more to come online later on.

Why is that? Because the technology is developing at a rapid pace to produce ethanol, not just from corn or sugar but from underutilized materials such as cornstalks, wood waste, cellulosic material, all kinds of biomass feedstocks.

So what we are doing makes sense. With an 8-billion-gallon renewable fuels standard, we establish a strong floor for the time frame under consideration. The fact is, we will have no trouble whatsoever producing enough ethanol to meet this standard. As I said, the industry already has the capacity to produce nearly 4 billion gallons of ethanol a year.

I will be frank. A lot of this does come from my State of Iowa. We lead the Nation in biofuels production. I am proud of that. I am proud of the fact that 11 of the 16 ethanol plants in my State are predominantly owned by farmers. We have biodiesel plants as well. Biofuels plants are being built in many other places, too, but also in my State.

These farmer-owned biofuels plants are adding value to our rural economies. According to a recent study, each typical ethanol plant creates 700 jobs, expands the local economic base by more than $140 million, and provides an average 13-percent annual return on investment over 10 years to a farmer investor.

Iowa's 16 ethanol plants and 3 biodiesel plants, with more on the way, serve as local engines of economic growth. Our ethanol plants are expected to contribute $4 billion annually to the State's economy once all are in production, with more than 5,000 direct and indirect jobs. Once all of the plants are online, the industry will utilize about 500 million bushels of Iowa corn each year.

That was just for Iowa. Nationally, this renewable fuels standard is expected to create over 200,000 new jobs and add nearly $200 billion to our gross domestic product. Within 10 years, this standard will replace more than 3 billion barrels of foreign oil, more to reduce import dependence over this time than the economically recoverable oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge, before production even begins there.

I say again to my friend from New York, there is a choice. We can continue to spend our money--approximately $25 billion a year--in the Persian Gulf, or we can start spending it at home, not just in Iowa but in Georgia, New York, Illinois, and all over this country, where we are going to see these plants being built.

So we know that renewable fuels are good products. We know we can meet the demand. We know that it will help us in a lot of ways.

The renewable fuels standard is sound public policy. It is a key part of any plan to wean our Nation off of foreign oil. Contrary to what my friend from New York said--I am sorry he had to leave--there is a built-in flexibility through a system of tradable credits for oil refiners who exceed their minimum requirement. It includes waiver language from the requirements of the renewable fuels standard for a region or a State if circumstances warrant it. It rewards production of emerging biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol that provide tremendous value to our country, our farmers, and the environment.

Again, these and other provisions are all in the renewable fuels standard amendment that is being offered to the energy bill. That is why it is so important that we keep the standard in there, that we move ahead, wean ourselves off of Persian Gulf oil, clean up the environment, and put the money in this country. Let us spend our money developing energy in America rather than over in the Persian Gulf.

I yield the floor, and I thank my colleague from Illinois.

The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. THUNE). The Senator from Illinois is recognized for up to 25 minutes.

Mr. DURBIN. Let me thank my colleague from Iowa. He and I have something in common: We are interested in alcohol fuels, ethanol and diesel. We understand these are homegrown. You don't have to wait for the OPEC cartel to decide to send them to you. We grow the corn in the field, and one out of every six bushels of corn that is grown in America creates ethanol, alcohol fuel.

And it wasn't very long before Senator Durbin ventured down this road:

Because of our dependence on foreign oil, we have been drawn into a conflict, now more than 2 years in length, with no end in sight. I was one of 23 Senators who voted against the Use of Force Resolution that authorized President Bush to invade Iraq. That was not because I had any sympathy for Saddam Hussein--I never have had--but because I believed this administration had misled the American people about the real threat in Iraq. It turns out afterward we were misled, there were no weapons of mass destruction, no nuclear weapons, no connection with 9/11. It turns out the threats we were told existed did not exist. The American people were misled.

And then, after an extremely long and rambling speech, he ends with the embarrassing Guantanamo comparison to Hitler, Stalin, and Pol Pot.

Rowan Scarborough of the Washington Times offer this comparison:

About 9 million persons, including 6 million Jews, died in Hitler's death camps, 2.7 million persons died in Stalin's gulags and 1.7 million Cambodians died in Pol Pot's scourge of his country.

No prisoners have died at Guantanamo, and the Pentagon has acknowledged five instances of abuse or irreverent handling of the Koran

Good point.

Tom Harkin may be a hypocrite whose wife probably earned millions from her tenure at Conoco and then the merged ConocoPhillips, but at least he isn't showing his ass and then some like Senator Turban Durbin has been lately. Durbin's gonna get pressed hard on this one, so that will make for entertaining political discussion.

Predictions on the Gay Divorce Ruling by the Iowa Supreme Court

Per Random's call out for predictions, consider this from last August: Kick Out All The Judges:

I couldn't care less if gay people get married. If it's legal, let them. In Iowa only a man and a woman can get married, but is there anything in the Iowa Code that says only a man and a woman can get divorced in Iowa? Not that I've seen. Whoops!

I'll call, and raise you 50.

Rinse Taxpayer, Repeat As Necessary

From Radio Iowa:

The governor has approved about 124-million dollars worth of fix-up projects for state property...

Seven-hundred-thousand dollars of that is being spent to fix the water damage caused when a pipe in a 4th floor attic broke on Christmas Eve, sending water cascading down through the building. It damaged freshly-painted walls and ruined newly-installed carpets. Fans have been running in that area of the building for the past six months, trying to suck that wet smell out of ceilings, walls and floors.

Maybe this time they'll spend $359 and buy a WaterCop. Or maybe drive over to Thrasher's Hardware and pick up a shut-off valve for $10.

I Forgot, Part 2

A followup from the Press-Citizen:

In addition to being delinquent on its property taxes, a Nebraska company that owns a housing complex for Iowa City's low-income elderly also is behind on a city loan and owes nearly $2,700 in back payments.

Officials with Omaha-based Riverview Place Partners will be in town today to talk with city planners who almost pulled the $150,000 loan earlier this year because of late payments.

"It will be paid one way or the other," company spokesman Lawrence Mazzotta said, but added he was unsure "how we're going to do it, specifically, or when we are going to do it. ... We'd rather it didn't get delayed this long."

Mazzotta blamed the late payments on vacancy, between 18 and 20 percent in each of the two Regency Heights Senior Residence buildings at 1010-1060 Scott Park Drive. The company also owes $18,270 in delinquent property taxes on the apartments. Mazzotta said Riverview authorized payment last week, but it must be processed through a separate management company. No check had arrived as of late Wednesday, Johnson County Treasurer Tom Kriz said.

The tax bill is one of the largest the county plans to sell Monday. Each year, all of Iowa's 99 counties offer unpaid tax bills to bidders. Only the debt is sold, allowing the county to collect its taxes while investors draw 2 percent monthly interest until the property owner settles up.

"The occupancy has just been so off," Mazzotta said, adding that, compared to Riverview's other properties in Iowa and a handful of other states, Regency Heights is slow to rebound. "It just hasn't been generating the cash so somebody has to put it in, that someone being us."

In addition to the city loan, Riverview received state aid totaling more than $460,000 in tax credits and a $449,500 loan on which it doesn't have to pay until July 2007. The city and state loans are made with federal HOME dollars earmarked to build, buy or fix up affordable housing to rent or own by low-income residents.

We dug up a whole bunch of stuff on Mazzotta from the 1990s in this earlier post.

What the State of Iowa is doing by giving this clown any sort of corporate welfare and tax breaks is beyond comprehension, especially considering the previous jury verdict against him that was affirmed on Appeal.

And who are the Iowa politicians who allowed these sorts of tax breaks to be granted without a provision to revoke them if the freeloading douchebags from out-of-state default on their property taxes? Their heads should be dunked in an unflushed toilet.

It is difficult to believe that any apartment building in Iowa City, one of the hottest housing markets in the state, is having trouble attracting and keeping subsidized elderly renters. There's got to be more to this story.

Gronstal Is Running For Gov, Kind Of

The Register is reporting that Mike Gronstal, a Democrat from Council Bluffs, is running for Governor. Kind of.

The Democratic leader in the Iowa Senate says he is "kind of off and running" for governor and has taken formal steps toward next year's campaign.

Sen. Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs said Wednesday he has hired a coordinator for his exploratory effort and has amended his campaign filing status to reflect his interest in running for governor...

"I think it's about jobs. I think it's about education. I think it's about better access to health care," Gronstal said about what he expected his campaign's themes to be.

Wow, check out the big brain on Mike!

Dude, pick up your disgusting blob of nicotine gum, put it back in your mouth, and forget about winning the nomination. You haven't got a chance.

Related: Gronstal For Guv?

Democrats: Sorry we lynched all you niggers a long time ago.

The Senate clearly has a lot of time on their hands if they can spend time talking about and voting on this:

The U.S. Senate [Monday] night approved a resolution apologizing for its failure to enact federal anti-lynching legislation decades ago, marking the first time the body has apologized for the nation's treatment of African Americans.

One-hundred and five years after the first anti-lynching bill was proposed by a black congressman, senators approved by a voice vote Resolution 39, which called for the lawmakers to apologize to lynching victims, survivors and their descendants, several of whom watched from the gallery.

Chuck Grassley wasn't part of the roll call vote, along with about 20 other Republicans. Naturally, this gives the Democrats and Republican-haters ammunition to come back and say that those who voted against it might actually be for lynching! Not surprisingly, there's already a letter in the Daily Idiot today suggesting this.

Grassley probably had his reasons, but despite numerous searches I couldn't find anything like a press release explaining it. The Iowa newspapers have virtually ignored it.

When political bodies get into the business of drafting "apologies" it does get a bit stupid, especially since the Democrats had a long and sordid history of using the filibuster to keep anti-lynching and civil rights legislation from being enacted. Up until a few weeks ago the Democrats were attempting to use the filibuster to keep a black woman, Janice Rogers Brown, from an up-or-down vote for a Federal judicialship. And, talk about ironic, one of the senior members of the Senate Democrats, Robert Byrd, was a former KKK member.

For KKK Byrd to vote for the apology is sort of the equivalent of saying: "Sorry we lynched all you niggers a long time ago. Now please vote for us today. Those Republicans hate black people by not apologizing today when we Democrats were too busy lynching you and filibustering your rights over the past 140 years. Yadda yadda yadda."

Who was the black Congressman who introduced the first anti-lynching legislation in Congress? It was George White, a black Republican from North Carolina.


Update: Grassley was a co-sponsor of the bill. Something obviously happened along the way.

Here's the text of Senate Resolution 39:

Apologizing to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.

Whereas the crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the ultimate expression of racism in the United States following Reconstruction;

Whereas lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the United States until the middle of the 20th century;

Whereas lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States;

Whereas at least 4,742 people, predominantly African-Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968;

Whereas 99 percent of all perpetrators of lynching escaped from punishment by State or local officials;

Whereas lynching prompted African-Americans to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and prompted members of B'nai B'rith to found the Anti-Defamation League;

Whereas nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century;

Whereas, between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching;

Whereas, between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures;

Whereas protection against lynching was the minimum and most basic of Federal responsibilities, and the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Representatives to do so;

Whereas the recent publication of `Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America' helped bring greater awareness and proper recognition of the victims of lynching;

Whereas only by coming to terms with history can the United States effectively champion human rights abroad; and

Whereas an apology offered in the spirit of true repentance moves the United States toward reconciliation and may become central to a new understanding, on which improved racial relations can be forged: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the Senate --

(1) apologizes to the victims of lynching for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation;

(2) expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all citizens of the United States; and

(3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

Oh, I see. It's to help promote a book.

When you read the text of the legislation and the speeches by the sanctimonious Democrats on the floor, it really does comes off as: Democrats: Sorry we lynched all you niggers a long time ago.

I Want To Defy The Logic Of All Sexx Laws

Seriously, Random Mentality has a good criticism of the Sexx Laws that Vilsack signed yesterday.

However, the best Freudian Slip of the post should be noted:

I'd propose the committee investigate altering the indecent exposure laws to something roughly as follows - but please keep in mind I whipped this out in about ten minutes, and the language would need substantial refining.

No kidding. Heh.

Alligators and Boas

Alligators and boa constrictors in Iowa.

(Oh, that's nothing! They found a Woolly Mammoth in downtown Des Moines four years ago. - Ed.)

My moral hazard exists in the form of a penchant for $260 Miu Miu heels

Annie Shuppy, the Daily Hottie managing editor, has a good but somewhat conflicted column in the DI concerning autonomy and security:

To Bush supporters' credit, the peace of mind that comes with social insurance is costly. Some social-insurance programs have a foreseeable life span or are structured so some people will pay into the system more than they will ever get out. More importantly, they are going to continue to push for reform regardless.

But the specter of moral hazard also looms in an ownership society. As economics professors explain it, you're more likely to engage in high-risk (or at least less-than-optimally-responsible) behavior if you know you have some protection or backup. My moral hazard exists in the form of a penchant for $260 Miu Miu heels.

This is a really good part of the editorial and there's a lot of things to say about it.

A lot of people look at what Social Security has turned into over the past few decades and realize it's a Ponzi Scheme that's been raided for nearly 40 years by Congress. The money taken from taxpayers has never been "invested" in anything. And the T-bills that the "trust fund" is "invested" in require additional taxpayer money in future years (2017 to 2041) in order to unlock to keep paying full benefits. Yep, that's a textbook definition of "worthless IOU."

We can't continue to maintain a shrinking taxpayer-to-recipient ratio when it comes to Social Security receipts-vs-outlays.

What are the options? You can increase the ceiling on the payment of the tax at income levels above $90,000, but that's only a minor stopgap. You can just keep raising taxes on all workers. You can try to raise the retirement age. You can cut benefits. Or you can continue on with massive borrowing and screw future generations with additional debt burdens.

Or you can move towards a partial privitization model.

The Feds already take 12.4% of our pay for SS. 6.2% is ostensibly from me and 6.2% is "contributed" from my employer. If you're self-employed you're definitely paying 12.4%. Why not take a couple of points from that amount, have me agree to reduced future benefits, and invest that money elsewhere? I already know that I can get a better return investing it myself in government bonds than having Congress "invest" it in bonds (aka National Debt) so that I can have the pleasure of paying additional taxes in the future so that it can be withdrawn.

Any honest Econ 101 student knows that the current situation is screwed up. That's why younger working people are generally leaning in favor of reform and all the old people who couldn't be prodded into saving or investing their own dimes during their lifetime are against it.

Same thing with government and company pension plans. We see everybody and their uncle harping about how State and union-run pension plans are being underfunded and gutted. The suckers in these plans point to this fraud and say that it's the same thing as letting Joe Sixpack manage his money via partial privitization. BS. I'll drop my pants and show you my 401K total any day of the week so you can see how it stacks up against your underfunded pension scam.

Ms Shuppy's on the right track, but the inexperience of youth and her love of unnecessary consumerism clouds her opinion right now. Get her into a job and off the parental and scholarship dole and she'll probably figure it out.

It's not a Republican or Democrat thing. It's a "WTF???? You've taken all my money and done WHAT with it????" sort of thing.

To Oblivion And Beyond!

Joe at the Tax Update Blog links to a report by the Tax Foundation that indicates that more people than ever before are not paying any Federal income taxes.

We liked this particular factoid from the report:

The 42.5 million non-payers are largely low-income. Indeed, 91 percent of them earned less than $30,000 per year and 96 percent earned less than $40,000. Fewer than 1 percent will earn more than $75,000 per year – a group comprised largely of business owners whose tax liabilities will be erased due to business losses, carry-overs from prior year AMT payments, or foreign tax credits.

Why do we like this particular factoid? It's another virtual rolled-up newspaper to whack Dick Doak upside the head with after his laughable column on Monday in which he said this:

The latest trend in creeping socialism for the rich is differential tax rates. The taxes on the capital gains, dividends and inherited wealth of the moneyed class are lowered, effectively shifting the burden onto wages and salaries of the working class.

Dick, of course, can't cite any studies which show that lowering cap gains rates causes the tax burden to be shifted from the rich to the "working class."

(Who the hell are "working class" anyway? Don't the rich work? Maybe Dick is referring to all those Republicans who've never made an honest living in their lives when he's talking about "the rich"? Who knows? You don't know Dick and he'd certainly never explain himself. -Ed.).

Dick can't explain himself because there's a mountain of data out there showing that when you lower the cap gains tax rate, revenue increases. There's also a mountain of data out there demonstrating that when tax rates are lowered for all, the people on the poorer end of the wage-earning scale are taken off the Fed tax rolls and the tax overall burden is shifted towards the higher earners.

Bye Bye Commission

Cedar Rapids chucked the "commission" form of government yesterday by a landslide vote of 69% to 31%. KCRG has a big roundup. There's also a story in the DM Register.

As a former resident of Marion, I try to keep tabs on that area but the Cedar Rapids Gazette has a subscriber-only web site so it can be difficult other than doing archival searches via NewsBank.

Anyway, what a good thing for the residents of Cedar Rapids. That makes Portland, Oregon the last town with a population over 100,000 residents to have a commission form of government. It's always better to have a representational form of government for local matters rather than electing a bunch of people who are really nothing more than competing department heads. Imagine at your employer (assuming you're not a government employee) if your director or veep further up the chain had to campaign every four years for his/her job. Kind of weird, don't ya think?

In a way, the Council-Manager-Ward system is kind of like the way the Senate was before the 17th Amendment (direct election of Senators). Before the 17th Amendment, people chose state legislators, but the state legislators elected a Senator. In a Council-Manager-Ward method of city govt, the local people elect a council, then the council votes on who to hire for a City Manager position. Nothing's perfect, but this isn't a bad way to go.


Related: Commission? That's Better Than Getting Paid.

Maytag's Stock Goes Haier

From the Washington Post:

Maytag Corp. stock inched up Tuesday after Chinese appliance maker Haier Group indicated it may bid for the company...

The stock rose 5.2 percent Monday on renewed speculation about possible rival bids...

In the United States, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. is a major retailer for Haier refrigerators, portable dishwashers and air conditioners.

Hey, did we predict this or did we predict this?

Taylor Krueger Update

You remember Taylor Krueger, right? Here she is four months ago when she was battling leukemia:



According to the blog her mom writes, she's doing much better. Here's the main link to the web site.



But I had to mention this from their blog:

***The Online Pampered Chef Party that I had mentioned previously has started off pretty well... not sure as to the totals yet but the party is expected to go through the 16th so please be sure if you are interested to login and get your orders placed! All proceeds from this party are going to Taylor's care and medical expenses plus I also have the opportunity of earning free product like any other hostess!

Please check it out and enter Taylor's Hope as the show name... all product can be shipped directly to your home!

www.pamperedchef.biz/angelainthekitchen

Pampered Chef products are great, especially the Stoneware for making pizzas or desserts.

Here's a little background from the "Angela In The Kitchen" page:

I am donating 100% of my profit from this online party to Taylor's Hope... I met her Mom Shawnee on my BBC June message boards, and this little girl is the biggest "little" fighter I have ever known. I am so happy to do this and I hope you all will help for a GREAT cause...

If you're in the market for Pampered Chef products, here's your chance to get some great stuff for the kitchen AND help pay Taylor's considerable medical expenses. June 16th appears to be the deadline.

How's That New Meth Law Working Out In Iowa?

Rather well.

From the Waterloo Courier:

Iowa's new meth law appears to be working. That's according to the governor's drug czar who says the number of meth labs found in the state dropped 75% from 2004.

The new law restricts the sale of certain cold medicines with pseudoephedrine, a key ingredient in meth. Van Haaften says authorities found 28 meth labs in May. That compares to 116 in May 2004. He says while the law didn't take effect until May 21st, talk about it may have scared off meth makers.

Why Do They Hate Wal-Mart?

Gary Sanders writes a guest op-ed in the Daily Hottie and really shows his ass:

So why am I and others around the country fighting Wal-Mart?

First, it is the major destroyer of small businesses nationwide. I have no empirical evidence to state that any particular store in the Iowa City area has closed because of the Iowa City Wal-Mart or Coralville Super Wal-Mart, but these monstrosities have definitely been a part of a larger trend with many other components (e.g., Coral Ridge Mall) that have hurt smaller, independently owned business in this area.

You couldn't get me to shop at a Wal-Mart either, but this guy's argument as to why Wal-Mart is bad just doesn't hold up. Any editor worth their salt would have told this guy to rewrite the thing with some empirical examples.

If you hate Big Box stores, just admit it.

Who wants to drive to the edge of town, park in a crowded lot, and walk half a mile inside a store to grab a gallon of milk? And then you have to wait for 15 minutes in the 20 Item Or Less "Express" lane behind people charging impulse purchases that are all Made In China.

Selecting What's News In Iowa

While some newspapers like the Blairstown Star-Press and the Cedar Rapids Gazette have mentioned Taylor Krueger's plight and fundraisers, there has been practically no mention of this story in the rest of the Iowa newspapers. The Gazette hasn't mentioned anything since December 21, 2004. Surely people are interested in hearing about Taylor's condition in the 137 days since her treatment?

There's also been nothing in the Des Moines Register. The Register chose to focus on the sad situation involving the late Brianda Garcia, who died of leukemia last month. The Register did a profile on her treatment and the illegal "undocumented immigrant" and uninsured status of her parents in 2003, a status which basically ruined Brianda's chance of getting a bone marrow donor and transplant in a timely manner. Blank Children's Hospital in Des Moines doesn't do the bone marrow transplant procedure, but they treated Brianda the best they could and ate the $150,000 in medical expenses.

HAWK-I and Medicaid are not open to "undocumented immigrants" or their children, but you really get the impression in the Register story that the reporter/newspaper has an obvious agenda about eliminating this "little known gap."

Whew. Sorry. Don't mean to get all political here, but it had to be pointed out.

A child battling leukemia is always devastating, whether it be a little girl in Blairstown or the unwitting child of "undocumented immigrants" - but what do you do? Should people and their children who are here illegally get their health care paid for by the taxpayers or hospital write-offs and get to stand in the same line for bone marrow transplants as those who are here legally, with insurance, or who are attempting to pay their own bills?

That sort of question is probably why the Register's readership is in freefall. The Register is willing to exploit the grief of parents to serve their political agenda of promoting Socialized medicine, welfare for illegal immigrants, and allowing "open borders" so that "undocumented immigrants" can come and go as they please. Meanwhile, they ignore Iowa's own who are struggling.

224 Engineers

From the Fairfield Daily Ledger:

(Lt. Col. Todd Jacobus, commander of the 224th Engineer Battalion of the Iowa Army National Guard has given permission for The Ledger to publish portions of the newsletters he posts on the battalion's Web site, 224engineers.com, to help keep readers informed of the unit's activities in Iraq. To read the complete newsletters, visit the Web site.)

...The tactical highlight of this week was a very large cache which was found near Karmah, which is a small town North of Fallujah, and an area where a great deal of insurgent activity has taken place for quite some time. 1st Lt. Eastman, Sgt. 1st Class Bolton, and their 1st Platoon team from Company C were searching this area with 1st Platoon, Company B, 2nd Assault Amphibian Battalion (United States Marine Corps) when they found several large caches in an underground bunker complex that was hidden beneath a storage area.

Included in this find were large quantities of rockets, mortars, weapons, ammunition, ordnance and a great deal of materials to make improvised explosive devices. The find was large enough that the Division Headquarters sent a Public Affairs team to that location to do a story and get some photographs. You can see this at the following Web site

Much more here than what was printed in the paper.

Read everything here.

Library Elf

Library Elf generates a feed and/or email to inform you when books you've requested are available at your local branch (including a link to operating hours) and when your checked-out books are almost due.

Most libraries in larger cities have systems in place for reserving and renewing books via the internet, but they also scam customers by not sending out overdue notices until after you've racked up some fines. Library Elf has options to prevent this, as well as hound you when holds are available.

Unfortunately, it's only available right now in Iowa at branches in Cedar Rapids, Hiawatha, Marion, and Iowa City. But like most new things on the internet it'll get around to po-dunk villages like Des Moines and Davenport some day.

Phishing Season

Former Iowa resident and Parsons Technology founder Bob Parsons, now running GoDaddy.com out of Arizona, has an excellent column concerning phishing and identity theft in his blog yesterday.

Dick Doak, Expert Economist, Gets Things Wrong Again

Dick Doak's laughable column in this morning's Register concerning Socialism and Capitalism is sophomoric and dunderheaded, but this part is completely false:

The latest trend in creeping socialism for the rich is differential tax rates. The taxes on the capital gains, dividends and inherited wealth of the moneyed class are lowered, effectively shifting the burden onto wages and salaries of the working class.

An extra load put on those struggling to get ahead. A lighter load for those already ahead.

Dick should cite a study that backs this notion up. He'll have a tough time with all the data that's already out there.

Update: With regard to capital gains, Dick Doak is completely wrong. Look at this chart from the CBO concerning receipts and use it in comparison with this chart that focuses on changes in the cap gains tax rate.

Hey, Dick, it took me about 90 seconds to find this data on the internet. Where's your research department? Out to lunch?

The Injustice Of It All

An excellent editorial in the Daily Iowan this morning:

But clearly more restrictions and penalties are not the solution. The national legal drinking age has been 21 for more than two decades, and public officials have been trying their hardest to prevent people under that age from looking at beer ever since. They haven't succeeded, though. One look at Iowa City on a Saturday night - or most college towns across America, for that matter - will prove this. Add to it the injustice of allowing 18-year-olds to die in Iraq but fining them up to $500 and suspending their driver's licenses for holding a glass of wine.

A couple of odd examples, for sure. 18 year olds aren't "allowed" to die in Iraq, and 99% of the time 18 year olds are holding a beer or doing shots. But we get the point.

If you're allowed to enter into contracts, buy property, get married, get divorced, serve time in an adult jail or prison, declare bankruptcy, and go into the military - then, yes, you should be allowed to have a cold one. Despite what Elizabeth Dole and her nanny-statist feelings were and are.


Related: How To Eliminate Underage Drinking: Lower The Drinking Age

Nusslepalooza

Everybody should read Todd Dorman's excellent column in last week's Waterloo Courier as it does a brutal job of pointing out the obvious problems with Jim Nussle.


Update: Meanwhile, Iowa Voice seems to think Nussle practically walks on water - except when he's walking across the Rio Grande.


Related: Iowans For Nussle

People You Don't Want To Know

The Des Moines Register sure put the car into Left gear and floored it in the Sunday edition.

It's hard to generate much sympathy for the total lunatic who blinded herself, the illegal alien parents of a daughter who died of leukemia, or the family who are trying to figure out why their batty and now-dead relative spray-painted his truck and then pulled a fake but accurate-looking gun on cops who shot him.

We Win

From The Des Moines Register:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean, in Iowa on Saturday, gave no indication he would be muzzled in the wake of an interparty dispute about his recent comments on Republicans' integrity and diversity.

"We are going to have a positive message and we are not going to be afraid to talk about moral values," said Dean, who headlined the state party's annual awards banquet in Cedar Rapids. "In fact, if you match our moral values against their moral values, we win."

(Groan)

What the fuck is the matter with Howard Dean?

What is this "We win" shit? What are you "winning" Howard? You're not winning anything! You're not winning elections. And you're not winning hearts and minds with that kind of elitist douchebag talk.

The funny thing is that most Republicans and conservatives don't seem all that pissed off about Howard's insane rantings anymore. They stand on the sidelines, point fingers, note the quotes, and let Howard Dean proceed on as the train wreck that he is.

What is it that people say? When you see a train wreck about to happen, don't stand in the middle of the tracks. Get out of the way.

Why Is This Man Laughing?

Ever since putting an email address up over on the side this week, there's been quite a bunch of comments.

Here's one from a guy who claims to be from Waterloo:

Hey, why is Howard Dean in the wrong to say that the Republican Party is controlled by white, Christian males?

Controlled? Hey, bud, why don't you go listen to what Howard Dean actually said before you start running your mouth. He said The Republicans are "a pretty monolithic party. They all behave the same. They all look the same. It's pretty much a white Christian party." and "The Republicans are not very friendly to different kinds of people." Dean's referring to ALL Republicans, not just those in charge.

As for the criticism, what do you make of this in the Des Moines Register?:

"I disagreed with him, and I said so," said former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, a likely candidate for the 2008 nomination who plans to visit Iowa next week. "And I want to be clear, I would have to say so again if I were asked..."

Iowa Democratic Party Chairwoman Sally Pederson said that Dean's overall message of spreading opportunity to all Americans is valid, but that his words were awkward...

U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin... said... "He ought to be a little more cautious, I suppose."

onetime DNC Vice Chairwoman Lynn Cutler, a Democratic consultant and former Waterloo resident, said party elites have expressed frustration in private over Dean's comments.

"He throws red meat to audiences. It's part of his attraction. But some of this is over the top, in my opinion, and I think it is distracting from important work," said Cutler, who supported Dean's campaign last year. "When our challenges are just so incredibly difficult, he should not be the issue in any one of the races next year and, if this continues, he will be...."

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack expressed interest in running for DNC chairman after the election but didn't. He declined to say whether Dean was right to characterize Republicans as he did...

Cutler said there is no movement to remove Dean but said he will be on a short leash.

"We shouldn't need to follow him around with a broom and a pail," she said. "He just needs to watch his mouth. But what else is new?"

It seems like the only ones supporting Howard Dean's blabbering are the Democrats in "safe" asylums like Ames and Mount Vernon:

Attending today's party fundraiser at Cedar Rapids' Crowne Plaza Hotel with about 500 other Iowa party activists will be Sandy Opstvedt, a Story City Democrat and leading supporter for Dean's 2004 caucus campaign. She said Edwards and U.S. Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware, another potential 2008 candidate who distanced himself from Dean, are choosing self-interest over party unity.

"I find it somewhat bothersome that we have candidates that, rather than standing up for their party, worry about their electability more so than the constituents and the structure of the party," said Opstvedt.

Likewise, David Loebsack, a Mount Vernon Democrat who backed Dean last year, said some of Dean's Iowa supporters have rallied to the chairman and called on his critics in the party to be silent.

"If anything, they want to contact those who have criticized Dean to tell them they should support Howard Dean and should not be critical of him," said Loebsack, who is considering a congressional bid next year.

Hello, this is Jim Jones. The purple Kool Aid will be served shortly. Please report to the big tent. Sieg Heil! Any slave who attempts to get off the plantation will be shot. Criticism will not be tolerated. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. Follow the lemmings over the cliff. Go along to get along. Bend over and take it. And shut the fuck up if you dare criticize the righteous and truthful Dr Dean.

If Adlai Stevenson, a lefty Democrat who at least always displayed decency during his political career and speeches, was able to come back and see what his party has turned into in 2005 he'd probably never stop throwing up.

Back to Mr Waterloo's letter:

Have you ever met a Republican atheist? Me neither. I'm sure there's one or two, but they keep quiet at the revival meetings.

And yes, I know there are black and Latino Republicans, too...I see all seven of them every four years, in the television close-ups at their convention, against the sea of white pudgy faces. But Dean is not wrong here really, either. Statistical data has shown that Bush's support in the 2004 election was overwhelmingly white and male.

Really? Are you sure?

I Forgot

First, a word of advice on how to manage bad publicity from Steve Martin:

You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?" First.. get a million dollars. Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?" Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!" How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don't say "I forgot"? Let's say you're on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, "I forgot armed robbery was illegal." Let's suppose he says back to you, "You have committed a foul crime. you have stolen hundreds and thousands of dollars from people at random, and you say, 'I forgot'?" Two simple words: Excuuuuuse me!!"

Now with this mind, read this piece of excellent reporting by the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

A Nebraska company that received more than $460,000 in tax credits and cut-rate property values to subsidize apartments for Iowa City's low-income elderly has defaulted on its property taxes and owes the county $18,270, records show...

"That is kind of odd that (Regency Heights) would have delinquent taxes," Kriz said, noting owners Riverview Place Partners, of Omaha, Neb., have missed three tax deadlines on the property during the past year. "There's some history of stuff being paid late, but only a month or so late."

The latest bill on the 38-unit building is three months overdue.

In 2000, Riverview Partners received $254,170 from the state tax credit program, which includes no penalty for a company defaulting on its taxes, said Shawna Lode, spokeswoman for the Iowa Finance Authority.

Jesus frickin Christ! What dumbass State politician implemented this gimme-away?

It gets worse:

The company previously received $210,000 in tax credits for the first Regency Heights building, completed in the late 1990s at 1010 Scott Park Drive. Kriz said owners paid the taxes on that building last week and two months late...

Under the state program, the property also is valued at a considerably lower rate, taking the property's cash flow into account. As a result, Riverview Partners pay taxes on an assessed $593,120 instead of what the city assessor's office estimated would be a $2.57 million value if the property were assessed normally. The difference is an annual tax bill of $35,000 instead of $84,600.

Next year's tax bill will fall even lower as the latest assessment dropped to $232,400.

What else can you say?

Well, you can go digging a little further.

The State of Iowa selected Lawrence Mazzotta and Riverview Place Partners II LP as the recipients of a low income housing tax credit allocation by the Iowa Finance Authority in 2000 (see PDF) for this property.

Remember, the year they were granted all this corporate welfare was 2000.

Google Mr Mazzotta's name and you discover this at the Nebraska Law Express web site (scroll down a bit to find the case):

On 12/01/99 Dominium filed a fourth amended petition in their action against Arbor Group, Arbor Company, Hastings, Lawrence Mazzotta, and William Beavers (all five collectively referred to as "the defendants"). In that petition, Dominium alleged that in 1996, it received notice from Hastings and Arbor Group that certain financial difficulties prevented them from paying real estate taxes and construction loan payments as they became due. Dominium stated that at the defendant's request, it paid delinquent taxes and construction loan interest payments necessary to prevent the defendants from defaulting on the loan. Dominium stated that notwithstanding its actions, the defendants defaulted on the construction loan and the trustee's sale was scheduled. Dominium's petition set out five causes of action against the defendants: Fraud, in the inducement to enter into the original contract; Fraud, through false representations of material facts regarding the trustee's sale; Tortious interference with Dominium's contract with Hastings; Unjust enrichment, defendant's received more than $1 million from Dominium but did not provide anything to Dominium in return for those payments; and sought a declaratory judgment.

Trial was held on April 18 through 21, 2000. On 04/24/00, the jury entered a verdict in the amount of $781,048 in favor of Dominium and against each of the following defendants: Arbor Group, Arbor Company, Hastings, Mazzotta, and Beavers. The jury did not find Lindenwood liable. The trial court dismissed Dominium's unjust enrichment claim. The defendants moved for a new trial which was denied and they thereafter appealed.

On appeal, the defendants contended that the trial court erred in submitting to the jury (1) Dominium's first cause of action, fraud in the inducement, when the evidence at trial established that Dominium was not harmed as a result of any statements the defendants allegedly made before Hastings entered into the contract with Dominium; (2) Dominium's second cause of action, fraud, when the evidence established that none of the defendants advised Dominium that the foreclosure sale would not be held; (3) Dominium's third cause of action, tortious interference with contract, when the evidence established that each of the defendants was a party to the contract or an agent of a party to the contract allegedly interfered with; and (4) the question of the individual liability of Mazzotta and Beavers, absent sufficient credible evidence to pierce the corporate veil and without submitting to the jury a proper instruction as to how Mazzotta and Beavers could be personally liable for the corporation's liability. The defendants also argued that the trial court erred in not granting the defendants' motion for judgment notwithstanding the verdict or, in the alternative, a new trial. Finally, the defendants also contended that the amount of the verdict cannot be supported by any competent evidence in the record and is a compromise verdict warranting a new trial.

After reviewing the record, the Court of Appeals concluded that the trial court erred in submitting to the jury Dominium's first cause of action, fraud in the inducement, and Dominium's third cause of action, tortious interference with contract.

As to the first cause of action, fraud in the inducement, the Court noted that here, Dominium alleged that to induce Dominium's predecessor to enter into the original contract, Arbor Group, Arbor Company, Mazzotta, and Beavers made numerous material misrepresentations. Said misrepresentations included, but were not limited to the following: (1) that Hastings existed as a Nebraska limited partnership in March 1994, (2) that Hastings owned the property in March 1994, (3) that Hastings was in possession of title to the property in March 1994, (4) that Hastings had applicable insurance policies in full force and effect in March 1994, and (5) that Mazzotta was the general partner of Hastings. The Court pointed out that the record showed that in March 1994, Hastings was not yet a limited partnership; Arbor Group, not Hastings, owned the property; Hastings did not yet possess title to the property; and Arbor Group, not Mazzotta, was the general partner of Hastings. The record did not contain any evidence showing that Hastings did not have insurance policies in effect.

"Clearly," wrote the Court "some of the statements Hastings made to Dominium's predecessor at the entry of the contract were untrue." However, it could not find any evidence in this record to support Dominium's assertion. "Although we recognize that in a fraud case, direct evidence is not essential, proof of fraud drawn from circumstantial evidence must not be guesswork or conjecture; such proof must be rational and logical deductions from the facts and circumstances from which they are inferred." Given the lack of evidence presented at trial by Dominium regarding its first cause of action, fraud in the inducement, the Court concluded that the trial court erred in submitting that cause of action to the jury.

Here, although the defendants renewed their motion for a directed verdict as to the first cause of action at the close of all the evidence, the defendants did not preserve their objection as to the second and third causes of action. The Court found no plain error in regard to the trial court's submission of Dominium's second cause of actions to the jury. Dominium's third cause of action, tortious interference with contract, was however found by the Court to have been errantly submitted to the jury by the trial court. "It seems clear that one of the main premises of Dominium's claims is that Arbor Group, Arbor Company, Mazzotta, and Beavers were allegedly acting as the agents or the alter egos of Hastings" the Court reasoned. "As stated above, it is legally impossible for a party or its agent to interfere with its own contract. . . . Dominium now attempts to argue, for the first time, that the defendants were not acting as the agents or the alter egos of Hastings." The Court noted that this was inconsistent with both Dominium's pleadings and its trial strategies and therefore plain error existed in the trial court's failure to make a preliminary determination that Arbor Group, Arbor Company, Mazzotta, and Beavers were in fact parties to the contract or Hastings' agents. "The third cause of action, tortious interference with contract, should not have been given to the jury" ruled the Court.

Nonetheless, the Court concluded that the trial court did not err in regard to the imposition of liability on Mazzotta and Beavers, individually, or in failing to grant the defendants' motion for new trial or for judgment notwithstanding the verdict. In spite of the trial court's errors the Court found that the verdict could stand. "The jury's verdict is supported by evidence in the record and is not a compromise verdict warranting a new trial" the Court concluded. "Therefore, the jury's verdict is affirmed." AFFIRMED

Does that mean that the State of Iowa gave tax breaks to... and Johnson County gives a tax break (valuation drop) to... ???

Help... are there any legal minds out there who can parse this? state29@gmail.com

On the other hand, Mr Mazzotta has quite an impressive bio and CV.

Pierre Pierce Update

There was a hearing today. Alfredo Parrish is swimming upstream.

Oxford Junction Schoolhouse On Ebay

Want to bid on a schoolhouse in Oxford Junction? (Thanks, Jay! - Ed.)


Related: Oxford Junction at Google Maps.

What a bunch of [censored by press-citizen.com]!

Petty letter-to-the-editor writer John Hogan reaps a considerable backlash today in the Press-Citizen.

What's dumber? John Hogan having nothing better to bitch about, the editor of the Press-Shitizen for printing Hogan's lameass letter, or spineless Iowa City Fire Capt. Larry Kahler for capitulating because of Hogan's letter?

Loren Huss Lives At 1428 SW Twin Gates Dr, Ankeny

And nearby residents are rightfully pissed off about having an insane rapist and murderer living in their neighborhood.

Here's the Google map of where 1428 SW Twin Gates Dr is in Ankeny. Note the proximity to Des Moines Area Community College.



Related: "They turned a rapist and a murderer loose today" and Loren Huss Update.

Friday Iowa Roundup

Members of the Ottumwa High School 4 O'Clock Sorority wash a truck, driven by Levi James, 16, Tuesday in the South Hy-Vee parking lot in Ottumwa. The teens spent their first day of summer vacation raising money for the Women's Crisis Center.

Best headline of the week: Performing in circus was clown's ambition

DNR rejects city slicker/environmentalist whacko request to protect jogger-eating cougars.

Sick.

The jerks at the Register never trust cops, do they?

Vilsack signs corporate welfare bill.

Next up on the WDM City Council's agenda: creating an ordinance determining what grade of toilet paper Wal-Mart uses in the public bathrooms at the new Jordan Creek store.

Four gallons to the mile.



Everybody bitches, even teenagers.

The economy sucks: Another month, another 150 homes built.

Sledgehammering cars in Centerville means that God loves kids.

Burlington native James Kelly to pilot the next Space Shuttle.

CSI Ankeny.

It's not too late to impeach Bush, the war criminal - says cowlicked future Starbucks assistant to the assistant manager.

Au Pair: "My grandma was a little freaked out when I told her what was going on"

Don't forget the Third Annual Mystic Fourth of July Weekend Goat Races

And it's one more day before he's back in Iowa.



We're going to South Dakota and Oregon and Texas.....

Two More Days

Two more days before he's back in Iowa.

You know you want to hear it one more time.

Cargill's New Biodiesel Plant

The Mason City Globe Gazette indicates that Cargill is going to build a $33 million state-of-the-fart biodiesel plant in Iowa Falls.

Blouin kicked in some corporate welfare.

The Hampton Chronicle adds more:

Initially, the plant will produce biodiesel and USP-grade glycerin exclusively from soybean oil, but Cargill officials expect to have the capability for using animal fat or waste grease for biodiesel production in the future.

Related: Past pieces on bio-diesel in Iowa

Breaking News: The Bible Predicted Something

Mrs John Buhman of Holland (Iowa) wrote this letter to the Waterloo Courier that actually got published today:

If anybody reads the Bible you will find the Bible has predicted the kind of world we are living in today. Read 2 Timothy 3. There it tells perilous times will come in the last days, before the Lord comes to take out all true believers; those who are saved. The Lord will come in the clouds when that day shall come. We don't know when it will happen, but it will happen.

Men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, etc. Doesn't this tell the kind of day we are living in now? It wasn't like this when I grew up. I am a senior citizen. The Bible predicted this thousands of years ago.

Talk about timing your life just perfectly.

The State 29 Factor

More letters:

Dude (or Ma'am, whichever is applicable)

Your blog is one of the high points of my day. I freakin' LOVE your snarky attitude. Keep doing what you're doing, and I'll keep laughing my ass off because of your efforts. Vilsack, the Pork Forest, Basu, and Blouin and 98% of the stuff that comes out of the Capital Dome needs to be blasted, and you're just the guy to do it (OK, I will confess to a slight disagreement with you over the issue of county consolidation - but that's a minor point). Count me as a fan, and I'll take some of that "State29 Factor Gear" whenever you get the store up & running. ;)

State29 Factor Gear???

We were going to host the First Annual State 29 Ho-Made Raft Floatilla down the Des Moines River but despite a better projected turnout than what the SS O'Reilly had, the event was scratched due to high levels of bacteria, Atrazine, pig shit, and plus the fact that the United Fruitcake Outlet pulled their sponsorship.

When the PorkForest is completed, we promise to invite everybody over to Coralville for an Iowa blogger campout under the dome. Maybe they'll give a group discount on the $42 camping fee that Dr Ted Stilwell has proposed. You'll have to bring your own medical marijuana, though.

Daily Ingrates

We get letters:

My name is Annie Shuppy, and I'm the managing editor of The Daily Iowan. I read your blog regularly and think you have some interesting opinions. However, I'm curious as to why you insist on labeling us "The Daily Idiot" if our paper is occasionally interesting enough to comment on.

It's your blog, and as a journalist I value everyone's First Amendment rights even if I disagree with what is said. I'll admit that the DI makes some mistakes from time to time (although we do not make any more mistakes than the Press Citizen -- and you do not demean them by referring to them as the "Press Shitizen" or the like). Yet I think that after some communication with me (you seem to be very protective of your identity so I doubt if you'd ever want to meet), you'll realize that I am dedicated to good journalism, challenge myself to become well-versed in areas of study in which many journalists are lacking (my second major is economics), and generally not an idiot.

Any suggestions you have are welcome. It's not that I don't value your criticism, because I sincerely do, but I just think the DI staff deserves more respect than being labeled idiots.

Press Shitizen - that's pretty good.

Wow, you're a hottie! Maybe it should be called "The Daily Hottie" from now on!

The DI has been referred to by many as the "Daily Idiot" for-evah. Decades. It certainly wasn't invented here.

And if University of Colorado President Betsy Hoffman can say the word "cunt" is a "term of endearment" then just imagine where in the spectrum the word "idiot" falls.

Aw c'mon. Grow another layer of epidurmis and be grateful that people are talking about the articles printed in the DI, even if some people make fun of the name on the masthead. There's a lot of other newspapers in Iowa with compelling stories besides the DI competing for space in the blogosphere, but you know that. For instance, here's one from the Centerville Daily Iowegian concerning the Third Annual Mystic Fourth of July Weekend Goat Races. That sort of story would certainly get Leana Stormont's goat.

Speaking of Leana Stormont, thanks for publicizing her views. She is a hoot. You should give her a daily column. She's infinitely more interesting to read than the tired Kos-isms and DU-mb rantings of Beau Elliot.

We don't ask for much. We loved the DI printing the completely unabridged works of Pierre Pierce, unlike the RAGister. We like the funny, fact-challenged letters. We like the snarky writing. We would like some followup on old stories. We'd like you to report the facts, or at least seek them out, concerning issues like Social Security reform. But that's minor stuff that any crank can mention. By the way, we do love the way you chip away at the Rainforest, unlike those ass-kissers at the Des Moines Register.

We have no desire to meet with any newspaperpeople, or newspaperhotties for that matter. Ev-ah. Nothing against y'all, but to quote former DM Mayor Preston Daniels: "You tell your editors I'm not up to nothing. I'm not newsworthy." So what did the Register do? They wrote an article about it. (Right, and then you blogged about it - Ed.)

Where did the "Idiot" name come from? Probably from the notorious sentence created out of the acronym for I-O-W-A: Idiots Out Wandering Around.

Iowa's Soft On Crime

From Iowa City:

Prosecutor Victoria Cole dropped an attempted murder charge against Lee based partly on the "facts and circumstances" of the case, Lee's age and his clean criminal record...

...Lee allegedly stabbed the 19-year-old woman in the abdomen with a steak knife and continued to slash at her after she told Lee they would not be "getting back together." The woman also suffered wounds to her face and arms when she attempted to protect herself.

...Earlier that month, Lee was sentenced to 30 days in jail and fined more than $400 after pleading guilty to domestic assault causing injury stemming from a July 2004 incident in Iowa City. In that case, police say Lee threw a glass ashtray at a woman, striking her in the face.

Cole is asking that Lee's sentences run concurrently, which would mean Lee would spend no more than five years behind bars. Defense lawyers want Lee to be placed on supervised probation.

Anybody who stabs another person with a knife repeatedly, and it's not in self-defense, is a potential killer who should be removed from society.

More Bankruptcies

Last weekend there was an article in the Iowa City Press-Citizen about how lawyers in that area are seeing more people filing for bankruptcy and considering to file for Chapter 7 before October 17th, when bankruptcy laws change.

The piece is biased in favor of the bankruptcy attorneys who are interviewed, but that's par for the course. Why would a newspaper bother go out and try to find somebody who once had a lot of debt, sacrificed, paid it off, and wanted to encourage or even shame others into paying their own debts. That would be too difficult. Here's an example from the story:

Klesner said he was disappointed with the new law, which was approved April 20, saying it might cut down on bankruptcy filings but would not address the root causes of bankruptcy, such as medical costs and layoffs...

Trca said that what happens after Oct. 17 is unclear, but he agreed that the laws were unlikely to discourage people from going into debt. He said people often feel they have no other option.

Don't bother interviewing a financial advisor or planner. Don't bother interviewing somebody who works with people who are trying to get themselves out of debt hell. No, no, no, no, no. Instead, interview a bunch of lawyers who specialize in a bankruptcy practice.

The reason we are talking about bankruptcy again is that we've discovered that a work acquaintance and his wife have been approved for Chapter 7. This came through the grapevine, but was confirmed with a database search today.

They both work in fairly professional jobs (both probably earn in the low-to-mid-$30s) and they have three kids, at least one and maybe two are in school now.

A real estate search showed that they've been "buying" their (very modest) house on contract for the past five years. That's a long time to be doing that sort of thing. Contracts on houses usually have brutal interest rates; often in the 10% to 15% range.

Their debt discharged wasn't that significant. They had fewer assets than debts, but only by a couple grand. Being married and with three young kids would generate a healthy tax refund at their speculated income levels.

From what we've seen, most people who have declared bankruptcy in the past for seemingly paltry amounts eventually return to their bad habits. When they're allowed to, they buy new cars, bigger homes, and participate in rampant consumerism. The cycle continues, but on a larger scale.

Do you know anybody who has had to declare bankruptcy because of a medical bill or layoff? That's not to say it doesn't happen, but it's probably more rare than a bunch of researchers at Harvard and the sheeple media are leading you to believe.

These lawyers in Iowa City are supposedly oh-so concerned with how people get into debt. Maybe once people are forced to pay back the bills they've run up they'll learn a thing or two.

Howard Dean Is Coming To Cedar Rapids On Saturday

Wonder if he'll provide any more juicy quotes? From WHO-TV:

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean will attend the Iowa Democratic party's sixth annual Hall of Fame celebration in Cedar Rapids this Saturday. Dean is working to strengthen state parties and run successful campaigns in all fifty states.

On the Today Show this morning, Dean was defending his recent criticism of republicans, including his observation that they are "pretty much a white, christian party." Dean made the comment again on NBC this morning where he also defended himself by saying the attacks on him are a diversion.

Dean says, "I think it is true that the republicans are, in fact, a largely white, christian party. There is nothing the matter with that. I'm a white christian myself. But they don't include other folks. And this is a very diverse country. And, in fact, they've gone out of their way to use other kinds of people as scapegoats in order to win elections."

Dean recently raised eyebrows when he told a group of progressives that republicans "never made an honest living in their lives."

Related: Tom Harkin: Judge Priscilla Owen Is "Wacko" and Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban"

Jeff Clement

From Radio Iowa:

A native Iowan was one of the first players chosen in the Major League Baseball draft. Jeff Clement, a graduate of Marshalltown High School, was selected today as the number three pick in the draft. Clement, who is now a catcher with USC, was chosen by the Seattle Mariners. USC is still alive in the NCAA playoffs. The Trojans will play at Oregon State on Friday. Clement, a leftie who is known as a power-hitter, is in his junior year at Southern Cal. Clement has hit 44 home runs in college and trails only two other USC players on the home-run list. One of those players is Mark McGwire, the St. Louis Cardinals' home-run slugger, who hit 54 homers during his time at USC. Clement is hitting .352 this year, with 13 home runs. Clement is only the fourth Iowan selected in the first round since 1980.

Congrats, Jeff!

Where's Pierre Pierce?

He's not at basketball camp:

Pierre Pierce was not listed as a basketball prospect in an NBA pre-draft camp that began Tuesday in Chicago, according to the Associated Press. However, his attorneys filed a motion Tuesday requesting that the Westmont, Ill., native not be required to attend a Friday hearing in Adel, Iowa.

Des Moines-based attorney Alfredo Parrish said in court papers that per a judge's decision, Pierce was allowed to attend the NBA camp although he violated a no-contact order in conjunction with first-degree burglary charges last month.

Pierce, who turned 22 on Tuesday, faces up to 56 years in prison if convicted of two counts of first-degree burglary, a felony charge of assault with intent to commit sexual abuse, and criminal mischief, a misdemeanor.

Er, where is he?


Related: Judge Hulse: Pierre Pierce Can Do ALMOST Whatever The Hell He Wants

Baiting Joe

After Joe at the Tax Update Blog posted this yesterday:

I LOANED THE KID MY DIGITAL CAMERA TODAY...and I can't take pictures of the crime scene below my window

It's pretty clear that the Des Moines Register is taunting Joe today with this in the followup news story:

Were you there? Did you witness the shooting or take photos of it? Tell us what you saw, or e-mail your photos to us at the Des Moines Register.

The Register clearly doesn't read Beat Canvas, otherwise they'd also be soliciting for artistic reproductions of the scene.


Somewhat Related: Perhaps you have not heard of blogs. The name derives from a combination of "blather" and "logorrhea."

Former Mayor Daniels Doesn't Read The Paper

Former Des Moines Mayor Preston Daniels offers a wonderfully prickly interview printed in the Des Moines Register this morning. Highlights:

Preston Daniels' spotlight has faded, and that's just what he wants.

"I am not news. I am not newsworthy," he said last week to a reporter who had tried for two weeks to reach him.

Daniels returned the call after a message was left with his wife.

"If you hadn't called my wife, I would never have called you back," he said. "You tell your editors I'm not up to nothing. I'm not newsworthy."

...Daniels, the city's first black mayor, supported Councilwoman Christine Hensley for the race to succeed him. He believes, however, that Mayor Frank Cownie is "doing fine."

"I don't hear a lot about him, but then again, I don't read the paper," Daniels said.

Good for him!

Just Say Yes Or No To Corporate Welfare

The Register Editorial Board's column today concerning corporate welfare is horribly schizophrenic and without logic:

If Iowa only had the courage to just say no. No to bribing businesses to do what they might do anyway. No to making taxpayers captive investors in businesses from which they derive no direct return on their investments.

But Iowa won't - can't, really - unilaterally disarm in the war between the states for what's called economic development.

Only the federal government has the power to impose a cease-fire. Congress should do so.

In the meantime, Iowa tries to stay in the giveaway game, each year adding to an ever-growing array of business incentives...

Until the rules of the incentives game are changed, though, Iowa must keep playing. The recently re-enacted Grow Iowa Values Fund was a needed piece of legislation.

So corporate welfare paid for by the taxpayers and competing businesses is wrong, but everybody else is doing it so why can't we?

Alfredo Parrish Strikes Again

From this afternoon's Des Moines Register:

A former Maharishi University of Management student will be found not guilty of first-degree murder by reason of insanity if a Jefferson County judge agrees with prosecution and defense attorneys.

Shuvender Sem, 25, a diagnosed schizophrenic, had been off his medication for months when he stabbed Levi Butler, 18, in the chest on March 1, 2004, in front of dozens of students in the M.U.M. campus dining hall, said Virginia Barchman, asst. attorney general.

"Mr. Sem is a person who suffers from an extremely dangerous mental illness," she said. "We ask the court to find this young man not guilty by reason of insanity."

In an unusual move, Barchman and defense attorney Alfredo Parrish submitted notebooks of psychiatric reports and depositions instead of arguing the case, scheduled for trial today in Jefferson County.

They asked District Judge Richard Meadows to decide whether Sem is guilty based on the stipulated evidence, of which attorneys said they are in basic agreement.

Parrish said he recommended Sem waive his right to a jury trial because juries often don't understand mental illness and might not acquit his client, even though several psychiatrists agree Sem was insane at the time of the stabbing.

Meadows said he hopes to issue a written within two weeks.

This murderer will be free to be off his meds and kill again before you know it. What do you want to bet?

Alfredo Parrish - so expensive that only the guilty can afford him.

Fitzgerald For Governor?

According to Radio Iowa, State Treasurer Michael Fitzgerald, a Democrat, is considering running for the Terrace Hill job:

State Treasurer Mike Fitzgerald says he's talking with supporters, sizing up his chances for the democratic nomination. Fitzgerald had served as treasurer for 22 years, and he says the state's fiscal condition worries him. "We're getting away from our solid financial foundation," Fitzgerald says. He worries the state has to have a balanced budget to move forward, fill its reserve funds, and must recognize that the IPERS pension fund is short by more than two-Billion dollars. "That's a debt Iowa owes," he says, "and we have to start dealing with it."

We love Michael Fitzgerald. To pick between him and Ed Fallon would be difficult because Fitzgerald has actually created one of the best state-managed college savings plans in the country. Talk about trusting somebody with your children!

Fitzgerald is probably getting disgusted with the "fiscally prudent" pro-corporate welfare attitude that Vilsack, Blouin, a large number of Democrats, and most Republicans in the Iowa Legislature have created. We mentioned his concern last August.

He certainly looks the part (unlike Ed Fallon), has actually done something quite successful (unlike Chet Culver), and is wise to sensible economic matters (unlike Michael Blouin and especially Jim Nussle).

If the Democrats were smart, they'd get behind somebody like Fitzgerald very quickly.

Five Ds For The Elitist Douchebag

The story about how Kerry's grades at Yale were essentially equal with President Bush's is all over the place this morning. Nice B+ in Poli Sci and French, Senator.

Rewind to Professor Yin's analysis concerning to a question about why Kerry went to Boston College rather than Harvard for law school, raised by Professor Althouse last August, for an Iowa blog tie-in.

Leana Stormont's Guest Op-Ed In The Daily Idiot

The Daily Idiot is printing again and Leana Stormont has a guest op-ed today that goes a little something like this:

Our tolerance of the subjugation of animals - whether for science, scholarship, or a sandwich - is a serious moral loophole that reflects an unprincipled form of discrimination and prejudice. The animal-rights movement is a civil-rights movement that directly challenges the system of commodification, which treats animals as property.

One million animals are killed in this country every hour so we can bury their bodies in our stomachs. That's 8.76 billion land animals annually. We yank another 15 billion creatures from the sea so we can chew on their bodies and swallow them.

Yikes.

Congratulations on the law degree, Ms Stormont. Now, please, move the fuck out of Iowa.

The Guv Job

Radio Iowa has an interesting story about Vilsack's reaction of Nussle's statement concerning his proposed "top to bottom review" of state government if he's elected.

The most curious part:

Michael Blouin was appointed by Governor Vilsack to lead the Iowa Department of Economic Development. "We need to find ways in this 21st century to create quality, futuristic, flexible, adaptable and visionary local governments all across Iowa," Blouin says. "We're working with an incredibly old governmental structure in this state."

Blouin says he won't "ram change down people's throat" but will try to find incentives that would make change possible.

Yeah, we know how Blouin would find incentives. It would be in the form of some kind of payoff or corporate welfare. It's the only thing Blouin knows.

Whoever gets elected needs to propose a radical change in county government in Iowa. We need to cut our 99 counties down to somewhere between 9 and 15. It's been more than 150 years since the state was divided up so that the county seat would be a day's horse ride away from most points in the county. Today we have things called cars and the internet to take care of county business. There's absolutely no reason in the world that counties like Worth (population 7773) should exist with a full structure. What a waste.

More On Cougars In Iowa

The issue is coming back, pushed by a couple of city slicker busybodies who are "environmentalist activists":

Cougars could be added to Iowa's Endangered Species List if a petition from an eastern Iowa couple is adopted by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources, or DNR.

Environmental activists Wallace and Pam Taylor of Marion, Iowa, have petitioned the DNR's Natural Resource Commission to protect the feline predator. The commission tabled the question in May but will take it up again Thursday at 8:30 a.m. at a meeting in Storm Lake, Iowa.

DNR officials from the Wildlife Bureau and Endangered Species Program have recommended the cougar — also called a mountain lion — instead be protected by adding it to the official list of fur-bearing species, which would require agreement from the Iowa Legislature.

The DNR - the same folks who have mismanged the deer population in Iowa for the past couple of decades...

Sneering and Elitist

The Register Editorial Board's sneering, elitist column concerning the recent SCOTUS decision concerning California's medical marijuana law is pretty bad:

This debate is as old as the Constitution. It makes obvious sense to operate as a single national marketplace rather than 50 separate competing countries. The court majority makes a persuasive case that Congress' exercise of Commerce-clause powers in this case is consistent with the court's precedents.

As for medical marijuana, someone other than Cheech and Chong will have to do the movie version of this case.

In 1996, 56% of Californians voted to approve Prop 215, which was the medical marijuana law in question. I guess the elitist snobs on the Register Editorial Board could give a shit about those with real chronic pain and AIDS victims who can't eat due to nausea. They could also care less about State's rights or the will of the People and snicker that Justice Clarence Thomas came out in favor of the issue. It's just juvenile partisan bullshit, but that's what we've come to expect from this bunch of old farts and clowns working for Gannett down on Locust.

Just keep the "Reefer Madness" lies and stoner humor going, folks. Nothing to see here. Move along.

Related: Medical Marijuana In Iowa

Tom Harkin: Judge Priscilla Owen Is "Wacko" and Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban"

From Bob Novak's column:

On the day before Texas Supreme Court Justice Priscilla Owen was confirmed by the Senate as part of a negotiated compromise, Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin called her "wacko."

Harkin, appearing on liberal Randi Rhodes's national radio talk show, became animated as he said of Owen: "This is not a person to put on the bench for a lifetime appointment. This person is wacko! She's wacko!"

On the same program, Harkin said Christian broadcasters are "sort of our home-grown Taliban." He added: "They have a direct line to God. And if you don't tune into their line, you're obviously on Satan's line."

Is this the same Tom Harkin who wanted the Democrats to reach out to evangelical Christians following the Democrats' defeat last November? Nice way to show your affection.

Maybe he's pissed at being sued for heresy.

Iowa Strong Welfare Start

Vilsack signed HF 761 today, which is the Iowa Strong Start legislation. Radio Iowa reports:

Governor Tom Vilsack today signed legislation that sets aside $24 million more state tax dollars for early childhood education. "Literally today thousands of Iowa's children are having a good day and they don't even know it because they're going to have the opportunity to access pre-school. They're going to have the opportunity to access quality child care. They're going to have parents who know how to create creative and stimulating environments at home," Vilsack says.

So it's more money devoted to "educating" kids at the pre-school level? Well, no, not exactly:

Gloria Gray, the executive director of Children and Families of Iowa, says child care centers that rely on state subsidies will be able to enroll more kids. "Part of what the legislature did was increase the eligibility for low-income families to qualify for subsidies and then also increased the state subsidy rate," she says. That rate has been the same for the past six years

Actually, what child care centers will be able to do is rate rates. Just watch.

Even the Governor's web site indicates that this bill, spun as an "early education" or "pre-school" bill for kids, is really nothing more than dumping money:

The Community Empower-ment program will receive $10.4 million in new funding to distribute and expand school ready grants, assist low-income parents with preschool tuition and expand child care and preschool providers with professional development. An additional $10.75 million will be distributed to expand child care assistance, increasing eligibility to 145 percent of the federal poverty levels, increase provider reimbursement rates and begin implementation of a child care rating system.

Vilsack, who's from Pittsburgh, a city which has one of the most expensive and shittiest school districts in the country, is dumping more money at daycare and poor mothers so they can live the feminist ideal. Wonderful.

Nice spin, Governor. This bill does nothing for regular working people who put their kids in private pre-schools and eschew daycare in favor of stable marriages, stay-at-homes, and not keeping up with the Joneses. This bill also does nothing except probably causing daycare and preschool rates to rise even more thanks to government meddling with taxpayer dollars.

Update: Does that gold dome echo, or what?

Repeat after me: With its tax incentive system, Iowa taxes its existing businesses to lure and subsidize their competitors.

Joe from the Tax Update Blog has an excellent followup piece concerning a story in yesterday's Des Moines Register regarding "fiscally prudent" corporate welfare and economic development business tax breaks.

Dick Doak: Social Security Expert and Economist

Dick Doak's column today concerning Social Security solvency in the Des Moines Register is so embarrassingly bad and filled with so many errors that he should retract it:

The truth is, far too much has been made of the problem in Social Security, and the solutions proposed are much more complicated than they need to be.

Here's the simple solution: Make the economy grow.

That's it. That's the totality of what needs to be done to put Social Security on a sound financial footing indefinitely.

As expected, Dick repeats the lie that Social Security is 100% solvent until 2041. It's not. It's solvent until sometime between 2017 and 2018 according to the Social Security Trustees. You can look it up yourself.

Dick's other suggestions for Social Security solvency? Get rid of the budget deficits while at the same time "investing" in education and infrastructure.

Huh???

Money may grow on trees for those who work for newspapers, but it doesn't for tax revenue.

The Krystalnicht Is Coming!!! The Krystalnicht Is Coming!!!

Neil Daniels of Coralville has an irresponsible and kooky letter in today's Iowa City Press-Citizen:

If the religious zealots don't cool it, I fear many American daughters might be wearing chastity belts that say "Property of U.S. Government. Don't open until legally married."

If you are thinking about having pre-marital sex -- sorry. If you are a gay male, it is worse. You're a child molester.

In the new fundamentalist America, your innocence is irrelevant because some people will be guilty until proven otherwise. Old political individual scores will be ruthlessly settled.

The purpose of a republic is to establish rules and responsibilities so an individual's rights are protected against government abuse. Without these rights and rules none of us are truly safe. Many freethinking people are scared and angry because we might be victims of an American religious Krystalnicht where our humanity and conscience becomes a sin.

I hope people of differing faiths agree to disagree because some things are best left to God to decide.

Krystalnicht??? This guy is ready for the psycho ward.

Top Five Iowa Governors

Dweeze had an interesting post a few days ago concerning his list of top ten presidents while he's been alive. Corvis follows in a similar vein, although exactly what freedoms Bush 43 has taken away and what religious agenda of his we're all forced to follow is a mystery.

How about a Top Five list of recent Iowa governors?

Durst (5) to Bovs (1).


5. Terry Branstad (R)
"Farmer" with law degree. Cheesy "leather-bar" moustache. Attempted to shrink the size of government, but failed. Re-elected a zillion times and nobody ever really knew why except that Don Avenson scared the hell out of old ladies and Roxanne Conlin looked like Tootsie. Son made an improper automobile pass at age 16, crashed, killed two people, but got off with a misdemeanor. Faux-conservative. Used Iowa's bible-thumpers to keep his job. Thought the money toilet called the Iowa Communications Network was a swell idea. Refused to meet even once with elected Lt Gov Jo Ann Zimmerman (a Democrat) during her four year term! That's cold!


4. Tom Vilsack (D)
Wimpy Republican legislature sort-of kept Vilsack's left-winged utopian ambitions in check. Ramped up the horrible practice of paying out corporate welfare using taxpayer money. Big plus: Marathon runner. Big negative: supposedly couldn't figure out email. Cosy with the bigtime Dems. Knew when to shut up during the Iowa primary in 2004. Stupidly decided to not run for re-election in 2006 when it was his for the taking again. Press thinks he has Presidential aspirations, but we all know he'd really like to have a nice cushy cabinet gig under Hillary.


3. Robert D. Ray (R)
Your run-of-the-mill, left-wing Republican. A nice guy, respected, well-liked, and all that. Had longest inauguration speech ever for an Iowa Governor, and the first broadcast on live TV. Grew state government. Re-elected a zillion times and nobody ever really knew why. Worst ever decision: Brought a ton of SE Asian "boat people" to Iowa in the mid-to-late 70s with Walter Mondale, so that's why Des Moines is full of Asian gangs. Currently shills for the stupid Rainforest con-game in Coralville.


2. Harold Hughes (D)
"The Man From Ida Grove." Self-described as a "college drop-out, a drunk with a jail record." Former Republican who was urged to switch parties and run as a Democrat in 1962. Even though Hughes was a recovering alcoholic (and who nearly attempted suicide in 1952), he reformed Iowa's alcohol distribution system with "liquor by the drink" and brought the state into a better post-prohibition era. During a re-election debate in 1964, his opponent asked about an alcohol relapse in 1954 and Hughes famously replied: "I am an alcoholic and will be until the day I die ..... But with God’s help I’ll never touch a drop of alcohol again. Now, can we talk about the issues of this campaign?" which ensured his landslide victory. Seconded Johnson's nomination in 1964, but became disillusioned and anti-war by 1968. Worst mistake: signing legislation banning the death penalty in Iowa in 1965. Ran for the Senate and won in 1968, which prompted his early resignation. Later went on to craft legislation concerning drunk driving and for drug treatment. Very religious. Incredible public speaker. Late in life he got an ear pierced. Quite a character.


1. Robert D. Fulton (D)
Lt Gov during the Harold Hughes era. Served 15 days as Iowa's Governor at the start of 1969 inbetween Hughes' resignation on January 1, 1969 to become a US Senator and Ray's oath on January 15th. Didn't do jack. Perfect!

UI Presidential Scholarships For Dummies

This letter appeared in the Quad City Times on Sunday:

I am deeply disturbed by the current and ongoing misunderstanding as to the merits of the war in Iraq. As far as I know there has yet to be a concretely proven correlation between the attacks at the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001 and Saddam Hussein, the now former dictator of the country of Iraq; yet this belief and false opinion continues to be held by the masses. This country desperately needs and deserves answers.

As the current Congress fights over rule changes and unethical Republican leaders, young men and women continue to die in a country a world-and-a-half away, and for what? Are we truly defending our own country or are we being lied to? Are citizens of the United States being sent overseas to defend and protect oil profits of the friends and business partners of the Commander-in-Chief? The weapons cache and capabilities of the Hussein regime was touted as being on the verge of being utilized to attack the United States, yet no signs of this, even after over two years of unending violence, have been seen. God bless our troops for answering the call to service, but shame on our president for abusing his power and shame on our elected representatives for failing to actively represent the viewpoints of all Americans.

Alexander Ingham, Clinton

It's a good example of the kind of idiot propaganda that the sore losers, left-wingnuts, and Howard Dean-supporting, Purple Kool-Aid-drinking sheeple who manically read Kos and the DU every day can come up with after they edit all the FUCK CHIMPY BUSHITLER!!!!!s out and send it along to as many newspapers who will gladly print this kind of boring, unimaginative, and poorly researched tripe that op-ed page editors eat up.

Even worse is that the writer of the letter, Alexander Ingham, won a University of Iowa Presidential Scholarhip Award for the 2005-2006 academic year. What does that entail?

Recipients were chosen from a field of over 500 top-ranking high school seniors from all over the country. Presidential Scholarships are awarded on the basis of high school class rank, grade-point average, college entrance exam scores, performance on the essay portion of the application, and high school or community service and leadership. The award is $7,000 per year or $28,000 over four years.

So the kid does well in school, gets the Mack Daddy of scholarships at Iowa, but he can't be arseholed into researching simple shit like UN Security Council Resolution 1441?

And what's all this "God bless our troops" bullshit? Phony, phony, phony, phony, phony. What a load.

It should be a fun four years reading this clown's letters to the Daily Idiot come September.

Namechecked

From the Des Moines Register's letters section today:

Last year the Register supported the proposed Coralville rain forest because "Iowa needs more big thinking" ("Listen to Younger Iowans," March 12, 2004). This year it was because "it's not as crazy-sounding as it once was" ("Fund the Unexpected," April 25, 2005). Really?

We benefit from "big thinking." No dream is "crazy." But both require realistic business plans.

One more year and "the elephant in the rain forest" remains. Promoters are still $90 million short on a $180 million project. Not a single dime has been added to the kitty by wealthy individuals, granting authorities, government agencies, corporations or foundations.

One more year and we still don't know what they're talking about. As blogger State 29 put it, "It's a floor wax. It's a dessert topping. It's an aquarium. It's an IMAX. It's a tourist attraction. It's an educational trainer center for science teachers. It's whatever they want it to be." (Once "Iowa Child," nine years later they still haven't agreed on a name.)

One more year and we still don't have construction, programmatic, staffing or operating details. Even if a focus could be found, there's no way to evaluate its feasibility.

One more year and we still don't know costs and budgets. What does the $180 million include? Construction only? Plants and animals? Pre-opening promotion? Subsidies for low-income children?

Cost overruns five times budget are not uncommon for one-of-a-kind projects. Where will that money come from?

Whether tourist attraction, research center or something else, finding perpetual operating funds is an even greater challenge.

"Civic journalism" is one thing. The Register does it well. Whipping up public and official enthusiasm for an ill-defined, unfunded dream, still "as crazy-sounding as it once was," is another.

-Nicholas Johnson,
Iowa City.

What in the world! How did that one slip by the editor? Now everybody is going to be Googling to find out more about State 29.


Update: Floor wax? Dessert topping? In case you don't remember, we're talking about Shimmer.


Much Later Update: Johnson really has a good point concerning the $180 million figure and what it entails. On February 23, 2004, the Des Moines Register first started using the $180 million figure, which was issued by the Rainforest proponents. Just a few months before, the Register was using a $225 million figure. But how long is a number valid for construction costs? Any project manager will tell you that a year and a half is a significant amount of time when it comes to projecting costs for any job, particularly when it comes to construction. Material costs fluctuate. Labor always goes up. Labor especially goes up in a hot construction market like Iowa City/Coralville/North Liberty.

Look at a relatively small restoration project like the Englert Theatre to see how the scope can creep and original cost estimates can end up being 150% more than the original projection. You can bet the same thing will happen with the Rainforest. $180 million? Using the Englert model of project management, expect the Rainforest to eventually cost $450 million and, like the Iowa Communications Network, require millions in funding from state taxpayers every year to keep the stupid thing barely afloat.

And, as we all know, the Rainforest proponents don't have all the money lined up. Over the past 6 1/2 years they've managed to raise exactly $10 million in private money - Ted Townsend's $10 million. The rest of the funding has been taxpayer-financed government giveaways or deficit-financed pork thanks to fauxscal conservative Chuck "Payoff" Grassley.

If a new ethanol plant in Iowa (of which the byproduct is heavily subsidized by government tax breaks) can raise $22 million in two weeks, why can't the Porkforest raise a dime of private money in 6 1/2 years? Do any of you lameass newspaper reporters want to ask that question of David Oman, Ted Townsend, Nancy Quellhorst, or Former Gov Ray?

Younkers Photoblogging

Joe at the Tax Update Blog did a bit of photoblogging yesterday following the announcement of the closing of the downtown Des Moines Younkers store in August.

Great stuff, especially the "We're Hiring" signs.

Perhaps GEICO could turn floor 3 1/2 into condos?

Younkers knew it was doomed as far back as the 1980s when they hired Tom Gould to run the joint. Gould's primary job was to keep competition away, and he succeeded keeping Dillard's and Nordstrom's out of the Des Moines market for years with hardball tactics.

Dillard's eventually signed a deal with Valley West Mall in early 1999 to build a $30 million store and parking ramp, but that was scrapped in 2000 after the Jordan Creek project was announced. Dillard's and Younkers eventually built anchor stores at Jordan Creek. Nordstrom's was interested in going into Jordan Creek early in the planning stages, but they later backed out.

It's a shame that the Des Moines area doesn't have a Nordstrom's. They have awesome stores.


Related: Downtown Younkers store will close in August

The QC Times

The QC Times web site has a new look today. It's much better, but the total rollout appears to be incomplete since the RSS feeds aren't listed yet.

Motion To Suppress The Victim

Poor Alfredo Parrish. He doesn't have much to work with:

Attorneys for former University of Iowa basketball star Pierre Pierce asked a judge Friday to prohibit prosecutors from using the word "victim" when referring to the woman Pierce is accused of assaulting in January.

In a motion filed with the Dallas County District Court, defense attorney Alfredo Parrish said describing the woman as a victim before and during trial would unfairly prejudice the jury and violate Pierce's presumption of innocence.

Instead, Parrish suggested the woman be described as the accuser or complaining witness or referred to at trial by name, according to the motion.

You're a little late. The woman's been described as a "victim" for quite some time now in the media.

The AP's Constant Negative Spin

On the front page of a lot of Iowa newspapers this morning is this story first printed in the Detroit Free Press a week ago, but making the rounds of the Associated Press wire service.

It concerns a 50 year old Staff Sergeant in the Michigan National Guard who has been laid off from work twice since he got back from Iraq. What's presented in the AP story simply doesn't pass the Bullshit Detector:

In Milan, Mich., Cummings' wife took out two mortgages and the couple went $15,000 in debt during his 14 months overseas, because his salary was less than he was making as a civilian electrical controls engineer...

In the year since he's been home, Cummings has been laid off from two jobs. While other reasons were given for the layoffs, Cummings thinks both were related to his duty in the Michigan National Guard and the time off it requires.

According to Salary.com, an electrical controls engineer, just starting out in Ann Arbor, MI (where Mr Cummings lives), should earn at least $60,000. Since Mr Cummings is 50 years old, he's probably got a lot of experience, and thus an electrical controls engineer III would earn nearly $90,000.

So during the 14 months while Mr Cummings was away, his wife took out two additional mortgages and racked up another $15,000 in debt?

What the hell was she doing?

It's clear the AP is just fishing for negative stories so that newspapers can constantly put a negative spin on the War On Terror. Mr Cummings and his wife appear, on the surface anyway, to be rotten examples.

Downtown Younkers store will close in August

From the Des Moines Register:

The downtown Des Moines Younkers store will close in mid-August, its owner announced today.

The 141,000-square-foot store has been located there for 106 years. Younkers’ parent company, Saks Inc., bought the building last month.

"This planned closing is consistent with our strategy of focusing our rrrrrrr blah blah most productive locations blah blah blah," Michael R. MacDonald, chairman and chief executive officer of Carson Pirie Scott & Co., which includes Younkers, said in a statement.

That sucks.

The Younkers building was always so cool with the "electric stairs", the rickety service elevator manned by an operator who could take you up to the "corporate" floors, the other elevator that took you to floor 3 1/2, the Tea Room, the driver's license station, and the old tunnel that took you under 8th St to the old Store For Homes (furniture, etc).

The best story from the downtown Des Moines Younkers store was from the 1980s when they brought in a giant statue of David, penis all hanging out and everything, and all the blue-haired old ladies cut up their charge cards in protest.

$5.2 million for the building seems pretty cheap. Bet they'll chop it up into condos. But would you want to live on floor 3 1/2?

Letter Of The Week

From the Quad City Times:

What a wacky political culture we live in today. Why one of your writers fears new appeals court appointee Janice Rogers Brown will “rewrite the constitution…” I wonder if he means like good Democrat Justice Harry Blackmun, who gave us “separate, but equal?” Ms. Brown was so objectionable that the Democrats made a deal to have on a vote on her. So much for principled opposition.

And then dear Sen. Tom Harkin, we can count on him to focus on the issues. Why Sen. Harkin recently said that the Republicans were like George Wallace. That they were “standing in the schoolhouse door” against minorities. Just who is it that has opposed all those minority appointments to some of the highest offices in the land?

Perhaps the Senator could refer to good Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd, who had a great filibuster against civil rights in the 1950s. Perhaps he means like Bill Clinton’s mentor, Sen. William Fulbright, Sr., who voted against the 1964 Civil Rights Act, just like colleague Sen. Albert Gore, Sr. It all reminds me of Bill Clinton’s political ally, former Arkansas Gov. Orville Faubus, who actually did stand in the schoolhouse door. Who is truly “standing in the doorway,” Senator, and wasn’t George Wallace a Democrat?

Toby Dickens, Davenport

(Hey, Toby, you forgot to mention Byrd's past membership in the KKK. - Ed.)

This is the same Quad City Times that has no problem printing and reprinting MoveOn.org's chain letters to the editor concerning Judge Brown. At least they had the balls to print Toby's excellent letter.

Rekha's Family Circle

Rekha's column on Family Circle magazine this morning is hilarious. Start with this:

Family Circle can be credited with helping my Indian-born mother adapt to an American way of life.

This wasn't the sort of magazine you'd expect to find on my parents' Manhattan coffee table, between the New York Times and journals about art, economics and foreign affairs. But it was usually there.

My mother, who had gotten a law degree at Yale and worked in the human-rights division of the United Nations...

Heh......

So I'd nestle beside her and read it, too. I'd read the heartwarming true-life stories and the helpful household hints on removing stains and stretching the life of flowers. In an uncertain world - the Vietnam War, racial apartheid - the magazine suggested there was no problem so severe it couldn't be solved with a cup of hot cocoa and some fresh-baked cookies.

Heh...

Heh...

I haven't cracked a Family Circle in years.

Heh...

Heh...

Heh... to the power of HEH.

And finally:

Family Circle has given millions of people guilt-free ideas to cut back on time spent in the kitchen. Reading it doesn't put you in the Martha Stewart or Oprah Winfrey clubs. You probably wouldn't boast of having gotten a recipe from it.

But in this multi-tasking world, it's taught folks how to make pigs in blankets from frozen hot dogs and croissant dough, and pizzas from English muffins.

The purists among us might scoff at those lessons. But over-extended parents still recognize their value. I still use some of the recipes.

This has to be one of the funniest Rekha Basu columns ever, although she certainly would never understand why.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall, Who's The Gayest Of Them All?

You've got to wonder what the criteria is when determining the winner of this scholarship:

Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, will help headline the Matthew Shepard Scholarship Awards Dinner at 5:30 p.m. today at Hotel Fort Des Moines.

Winners of the full Matthew Shepard scholarship, worth $30,000, will be announced, as well as honorary scholarships to 10 openly gay and lesbian high school students. Students must come from Iowa and be graduating high school.

Awards will be given to the best high school gay-straight alliance and the best college lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, or LGBT, group in Iowa.

The transgendered have to be pissed off because there's so many more lesbian, gay, and bisexuals out there (Pardon the pun - Ed.).

And what if you declare you're bisexual, but then go back to a heterosexual lifestyle during college? Is the scholarship revoked? Do you have to sign some contract saying you're remain lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgendered during college?

Genetic-based scholarships still seem odd in this day and age. Isn't it time society did away with skin color and sexual attractiveness-based awards?

Peg Maher: Worldwide Welfare Queen

Peg Maher is Iowa division president of the United Nations Association USA, and wrote this guest column to the Cedar Rapids Gazette last Sunday (via NewsBank):

The yarn goes like this: A worldwide survey was conducted. The only question asked was, "Would you please give your honest opinion about a solution to the food shortage in the rest of the world?"

The survey was a failure. Africa didn't know what "food" meant. Eastern Europe didn't know what "honest" meant. Western Europe didn't know what "shortage" meant. China didn't know what "opinion" meant. And the United States didn't know what "the rest of the world" meant.

Some Americans might take issue with this assertion in light of the attention now focused on Iraq. We believe we are a generous people. However, most of us don't realize that our country lags behind many less-wealthy countries in the percentage of income designated to helping the poor to help themselves.

At the beginning of this decade, 188 countries signed an important initiative known as the Millennium Development Goals. Each nation committed to a global partnership to cut poverty in half by 2015 and agreed to target 0.7 percent of its annual gross domestic product for development aid. A third of the way into the program, the United States is dead last among all Group of Eight...

The United States cites budget deficits as the reason for its anemic performance in helping the hungry feed themselves. In spite of the deficits, the country will spend $400 billion for the military and another $100 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan this year. Economist Jeffrey Sachs describes this as an "all war and no peace" foreign policy...

The 9/11 Commission concluded that development assistance must be central to America's strategy to defeat terrorism. "Hard threats" such as terrorism are fueled by "soft threats" such as poverty, disease and ignorance...

Are we really less generous than the rest of the world or is it that we are just unaware?

Bush has requested $33.6 billion for international affairs for 2006. The Senate is expected to announce its subcommittee appropriations Wednesday, and cuts to Bush's international affairs request again appear likely.

Tell your senators and representative that you support the full funding that is so crucial to the global effort for development. If the United States does not lead in the international struggle against poverty, let's at least do our fair share.

Full funding, according to Peg Maher, would be at least $82 billion if you base it on 2004's GDP numbers and a seven-tenths of a percent rate.

And anybody who's looked at figures concerning such things as per capita GDP, infant mortality, and inflation over the last few years will see that the countries with lousy numbers are run by dictators and have little in the way of capitalism. And most of them are in Africa.

These "less wealthy" countries who are "contributing" more money to the UN's cause are also gigantic welfare states whose economies are bogged down with high taxes and sluggish productivity.

And considering the way the corrupt United Nations has behaved during the oil-for-food, child sex, and numerous other corruption investigations, there's no way this body can be trusted with more money. Forcing Americans to contribute upwards of $100 billion won't help matters when old fart dictators like Mugabe in Zimbabwe employ racist tactics to kick out all "white" farmers, allow the land to be taken over by thugs, and then wonder why the population is starving.

People like Peg Maher may have good intentions, but giving welfare from "rich" nations to dictators who are clueless and oppress their people isn't the way to help Third World nations.

Related: The Katy Hansen Effect

Update: Poor Man's Pol Pot, indeed. Peg Maher sounds like one of those people "who will later pretend not to know what was going on."

Martin Luther King Preached Non-Violence

Now that the MLK Parkway extension in Des Moines has been completed after years and years and years of construction, the I-235 project is closing the westbound exit ramp that will take you to MLK Parkway for four weeks.

It's enough to make you want to turn violent. Heh.

Stolen Checks

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

In January and February, Pruett stole or helped steal multiple checks from several locations including residences on Boston Way and 12th Avenue in Coralville. She and others tendered the checks for $3,383 at various local businesses including Hy-Vee, Wal-Mart, U.S. Bank and Iowa State Bank & Trust.

Pruett remained in the Johnson County Jail Thursday on $35,000 bond.

Another good reason to never have replacement checks mailed to you. Always pick them up at your bank or credit union.

Until you've been the victim of check theft and had to clean up the aftermath, you probably don't even think about it.

These kinds of criminals deserve nothing less than to be tied to a post in the town square and whipped repeatedly. (Sounds like you've been there. - Ed.)

Emerson Martin

From the Associated Press:

Today's a big day for Emerson Martin.

The 45-year-old North Liberty man plans to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his heart transplant.

He was the state's first -- and he beat the odds more than once.

Martin was 25 when he was given only months to live. He went on to become Iowa's first heart transplant patient in June 1985 at University Hospitals in Iowa City. He also survived cancer, had a third child with his wife, Traci, and lived beyond expectations.

University Hospitals has since performed 153 heart transplants.

Martin was told not to expect any more children because of the drugs he takes -- 30-to-40 pills a day. His youngest daughter, Emily, is now eight.

His goal is to see her graduate in ten years.

Democrats Wise Up On Anti-Nussle Strategy

This article from the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil shows that perhaps Iowa Democrats have wised up with their battle against Jim Nussle:

"He [Nussle] inherited a $128 billion surplus in 2001, the year he became chairman of the House Budget Committee," [State Senator Mike] Gronstal said. "Since then, he has presided over growing deficits the last three years..."

"We think his record in Congress is indicative of what he'll do in the state," said the Democratic senate leader, who is considering a run for governor. "We think he's wrong for Iowa."

"Jim Nussle is responsible for the largest budget deficit in American history," said Lt. Gov. Sally Pederson in a press release...

Iowa House Democratic Leader Pat Murphy added, "We need a governor who wants to work with legislators to protect the state treasury for the benefit of Iowa families. All Jim Nussle knows how to do is plunder it."

Good start, but isn't this the same Pat Murphy who wanted an 8 1/2% increase in the state budget during this last session?

And isn't that the same Sally Pederson who repeatedly wanted to break into Iowa's "rainy day fund" for all sorts of spending increases?

Related: Democrats vs Nussle

Loren Huss Update

Random has an update to her earlier post about Loren Huss's release. The last several paragraphs should be required reading.

You should also take her link over to the Des Moines Register story from last week and listen to the 13 minute police interview with Huss back in 1986 following the murder. Chilling. That SOB should have been executed 15 years ago.

Heidi Schnakenberg, Living in San Diego. Maybe.

Heidi Schnakenberg resurfaces - in San Diego!

Naturally, she's going to get her stupid-ass opinions printed in the Des Moines Register:

Bush is quoted in his address at Arlington Cemetery this weekend, saying "Two terrorist regimes are gone forever . . . America is more secure." He goes on with his usual claim that our Afghanistan/Iraq war combo was necessitated by September 11.

Having two family members and several friends who are war veterans, Bush's repeated false statements on Iraq and homeland security are infuriating. Instead of "more secure," global terrorism has risen exponentially, and we are hated more than ever.

And while Saddam Hussein was no teddy bear, we have no proof that he was ever part of 9/11 or that he had working weapons of mass destruction. Every single claim we have made to justify the Iraqi war has been proven wrong, but we hardly question this reality and keep laying our sons and daughters on the chopping block.

Hopefully by next Memorial Day, we will have tired of the constant lies and demanded a revolution for lasting peace.

- Heidi Schnakenberg, living in San Diego

We catalogued Heidi's constantly changing address after she wrote an over-the-top and racist piece villifying Iowa's "white" and "homogenous" people in the Register back in late April without any proof other than some old relative that she doesn't name. What a phony.

Ms Schnackenberg has been so busy moving around lately that she's surely missed reading all of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions that Saddam Hussein repeatedly violated. She's dumber than a box of rocks.

Somewhat Related: Diversity At The Des Moines Register

Diabetes In Iowa

From the clueless Des Moines Register:

Obesity and a lack of exercise helped push Iowa's diabetes rates up by 24 percent between 1995 and 2003, state health officials said...

Experts say an aging population, combined with obesity and physical inactivity, have added to the increase.

"Obesity is certainly a factor, as well as what people choose to eat," said Dr. Maureen Connolly, medical director for the Iowa City Free Medical Clinic, which is seeing more than twice as many diabetic patients as it saw in 1993.

Many of the clinic's patients cannot afford healthful meals, she said.

That is just a bullshit excuse.

Nussle's In: Pot Kettle Black

Nussle throws his hat into the ring:

U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle formally entered the race for the Republican nomination for governor, pledging "a top to bottom review of state government" if he wins election.

"As governor of Iowa I will insist that state government reform first and lead by example - not simply dictate reform to the local level," Nussle said. "State government is the biggest bureaucracy and it must be the first to reform...

Nussle described state government as a spending machine out of control, and vowed to cut it back if he wins the governor's office.

"Iowa has just too much government," said Nussle. "We can't afford it and we have a multilayered tax system to pay for it that drives small businesses, jobs and our valuable retired citizens away from Iowa."

That's a little too ironic, especially coming from the chairman of the House Budget Committee who saw a Federal budget go from $236 billion surplus in 2000 to a $427 billion deficit in 2005. Granted, Vilsack's done an equivalent job raiding Iowa's "rainy day fund" to pay for increased spending and zillions in corporate welfare.

Nussle has a lot of other problems which are almost equally exploitable, but it looks like the RATS may sink their own ship by going after Tom DeLay instead of Jim Nussle and running Flounder as a candidate instead of the wonderfully retrosexual Ed Fallon.

Nobody gives a shit about Tom DeLay in Iowa except the rabid Deaniacs. If they want to have the Iowa governor election be Culver vs DeLay, Culver will lose, no matter how much obvious baggage Nussle brings along.


UPDATE: This is too funny. Mr Nussle, you have a Google problem...

Diversity At The Des Moines Register

Editor and Publisher has an initial story concerning a report that's expected to come out today:

Are daily newspapers over diversity?

That's one conclusion that can be reached from an analysis of daily newsroom diversity numbers that is certain to raise eyebrows when it is released publicly on Wednesday...

...As they have in the past, Dedman and Doig calculated for individual newspapers and chains a so-called Newsroom Diversity Index (NDI), which compares the percentage of minority journalists in the newsroom to the percentage of people of color in the newspaper's circulation area...

...Among the top 100 biggest papers, just 14 were at or over parity, while 25 had diversity indexes that were less than half of 100, the number that would indicate parity between newsroom and circulation area...

...The Akron Beacon Journal led the list of big papers that have overachieved parity. Its NDI is 177. Other leaders include The Knoxville (Ky.) News-Sentinel (160); The Des Moines Register (148); St. Paul Pioneer Press (148); and The Post-Standard in Syracuse, N.Y. (127)...

Yep, there's the Diverse Des Moines Register with their big NDI number to be proud of. Maybe the newsroom is full of wombyn and whineorities, but there is little real diversity of thought on the opinion page when it comes to the Register Editorial Board's opinions. The socialist/leftist news choices are oh-so-obvious and always promoted with such enthusaiasm and zeal.

CityView, central Iowa's Michael Gartner-owned "alternative" (cough - Ed.), doesn't keep their content hanging around the web, but here's a grab of some recent data they printed concerning the Register's circulation freefall:

Is panic setting in on Locust Street? The circulation slide at The Des Moines Register is deepening. For the six months ending March 27, the newspaper sold 138,604 copies a day to subscribers and at newsstands. That was down 2.1 percent from a year earlier and 3.5 percent from two years earlier. The Sunday Register also is in a free fall. The 232,739 copies for home-delivery, mail and single-copy sales was down 2.07 percent from the 237,668 of a year before and down 3.3 from the 240,731 of two years earlier. Fewer than four out of 10 households in the metro area - what the Register defines as its "newspaper designated market" - buy a daily Register. That area includes all of Polk, Dallas, Story and Warren counties and pieces of Boone and Clarke counties. For the latest six-month period, 84,997 households in that area got a daily Register either at their door (or driveway or roof), in their mailbox, or at a store or vending machine. A year ago, that figure was 85,824. At the same time, the number of occupied households in the market grew to 221,484 from 216,287 - meaning the all-important (to advertisers) measurement of market penetration dropped to 38.3 percent from 39.6 percent. (Two years ago, it was 40.8 percent.) The newspaper doesn't break out circulation figures for Polk County in its report filed with the industry's Audit Bureau of Circulations, but a good guess would be that now fewer than one in three Polk households actually buy a daily Register. Even when the newspaper throws in all of the industry's gimmicks - those discounted sales to hotels and employees and college students - circulation is still down. Daily, that figure has dropped to 150,907 from 155,898 a year ago - a drop of 3.2 percent in just one year. On Sunday, that figure dropped to 239,368 from 246,245 a year before - a drop of 2.8 percent. Again, that drop comes while the market as a whole is growing.

Anybody who carried the Register (...and Tribune! - Ed.) in the past knows that local newspaper subscription penetration in established neighborhoods could be in the range of 75% to 90% just a couple of decades ago.

This negative trend will probably keep growing for the Register. Part of it is the internet, and that's only because people are sick of getting a bunch of cliched leftist drivel shoved down their throats on a daily basis.

Culver Update

Looks like Chet Culver has called out the big guns:

Secretary of State Chet Culver has announced a 50-member exploratory committee, headed by former Attorney General Bonnie Campbell and Des Moines businessman Bill Knapp, to look at a potential run for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

50-member exploratory committee. That's hilarious.

You've got to admit that the Democrats are well-organized this time, even if their somewhat-anointed candidate is a dumbass legacy on the level of Kent 'Flounder' Dorfman.

Culver also has a recognition problem. Last month a poll by KCCI had Culver coming in well behind even Bob "What, Me Worry?" Vander Plaats and was way down the list from first-place Jim Nussle.

Related: Iowa Governor Beauty Contest

See Ya

This guy's going away for a while:

The Bettendorf section of the chase, which started when Bomar’s car crossed into Iowa at 10:23 a.m., “was at very slow speeds because his tires had come off and he was driving on his rims,” Redington said.

Four Bettendorf police cars and two Moline squads were damaged in the chase, police said.

Betcha they put those handcuffs on real tight.

Democrats vs Nussle

It looks like the Iowa Democrats are poised to lose Terrace Hill next year with this sort of strategy:

Democrats are scheduled to launch an ad campaign attacking U.S. Rep. Jim Nussle today, the same day the Manchester Republican is scheduled to announce plans to run for governor.

The radio spots airing in Des Moines and Dubuque take aim at the eight-term U.S. House member's receipt of $15,000 in campaign contributions last year from House Majority Leader Tom DeLay's federal political action committee.

That's not going to go anywhere. Few people in Iowa really know or even care who Tom DeLay is other than Sheeple Democrats.

What Iowans are going to want to know is how the next governor is going to keep the welfare flowing.

Related: Oh, Fallon!

Time To Reload The Bowl

The group in Iowa City wanting legalized medical marijuana failed to meet the requirements for getting on the ballot.