Mom And Dad Are Fighting Again

Instapundit had a link over to a Kos post that was vaguely interesting until we dug into the comments section and found some very lovely Iowa-centric in-fighting from Democrats.

First up is this pointed comment by Beowolf:

The villain in the 2004 is the state of Iowa. The Iowa Caucus picked Kerry, and due to the frontloaded primary schedule (with a week or less between primaries, instead of the longer breaks during previous years), no other state had a chance to second guess that decision.

You can also blame New Hampshire, but Kerry was pretty much the local guy and frankly it really shouldn't have counted in the horse race. In the last 20 years, Massachussetts Democrats have dominated the NH primary in the last 20 years (Dukakis, Tsongas, Kerry), clearly NH are going to be biased in favor of New England candidates. So yeah, I blame Iowa, they had no parochial excuse to pick this loser.

Then you've gotta love this followup post by Richard L. Johnson, who was the Hall Monitor for the Green Party in Iowa for a couple of years:

A poorly informed jackass says:"The villain in the 2004 is the state of Iowa."

Listen...you want to blame someone for Kerry/Edwards? Look no farther than Terry McAwful and the National Democratic Party...

[long, rambling diatribe edited out]

Listen, you want to blame those of us in Iowa for kick starting Kerry's campaign? You want to scapegoat us? Let me tell you a few things...

First, I joined the Democratic party so I could vote in the caucuses. I supported Kucinich, but when he was no longer viable in our caucus I moved to Dean.

However, at the end of the campaign, on that day in November, I held my nose and voted for Kerry/Edwards, the fucking "Dream Team" that was giving every Democratic Party leader multiple orgasms.

And Kerry took 60% in my county (Des Moines). Once again we held our nose and voted for Kerry/Edwards.

Now, you prick, if you want to place some blame, place it at the feet of that jackass McAwful, that weak-kneed bastard Kerry, and the rest of the party leadership who insisted that Kerry/Edwards was the perfect combination to beat Bush.

Ah, there's nothing like unbridled political passion to make us laugh out some big fat tears.

Like this Richard L. Johnson's "Dream Team" of Dennis Kucinich and Howard Dean would have fared any better. Ha!

Iowa Republicans Nominate Chet Culver For Governor

Chris at The Political Forecast notes how Republicans in the Iowa Senate are pushing for a death penalty bill in the next legislative session.

That's a pretty good political move now, especially considering how Chet Culver, the alleged leading Democratic gubernational candidate, is pro-death penalty.

Such a move wouldn't matter for 2006 because Vilsack remains the governor and would never sign such legislation if it got passed. It does put a lot of pressure on Gronstal to at least allow debate on such a bill, especially if there's a possibility that Culver is the nominee.

Silver Spoon, Section 8 Update

From the Daily Colonial:

President Bush is expected to sign an appropriations bill soon that includes an amendment from an Iowa senator to close a loophole in Section 8 housing regulations that have allowed some university students to receive housing assistance without counting financial aid and parental income.

An amendment by Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, to H.R. 3058, which appropriates funding to various federal departments, restricts college students who do not meet the requirements for low-income housing from receiving assistance. Also, financial aid will be counted as personal income under the amendment.

Harkin spokeswoman Allison Dobson said on Monday that the change was proposed after the Des Moines Register revealed UI students, some of them athletes with full-ride scholarships, were living at Pheasant Ridge Apartments, 2626 Bartelt Road, a Section 8 housing area...

Too bad Iowa's newspapers were too wimpy to dig in and investigate the parents of these freeloaders.

Just by Googling other newspaper stories we discovered that full-ride football star Chad Greenway's dad had no problem freely admitting that he spent $3000 on consecutive parking spaces so friends and family could tailgate together, and nevermind the nearly $200,000 in farm welfare he received between 1995 and 2003.

Another Post Knocking Iowa's Favorite Fauxscal Conservative

From GovExec.com, the web version of Government Executive magazine:

Nearly 90 percent of the Health and Human Services Department's discretionary information technology investments lack proper oversight from the department's senior investment board, according to a new report from the Government Accountability Office.

This may leave the department's executives unable to make informed investment decisions in managing an annual IT budget of more than $5 billion, the report (GAO-06-11) stated. The congressional auditors also found that HHS does not continually evaluate the performance of its IT portfolio or conduct post-implementation reviews on the investments.

HHS, the largest federal grant-making agency and the nation's largest health insurer, also lacks a structured mechanism to ensure that its component agencies are aligning their investment processes with the department's, the report said. GAO completed the review for Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

Read the whole thing.

We've been pretty unhappy with the fauxscal conservative Senator for quite a while now.

Man Wins $10K Playing Slot Machine TouchPlay

Story in the Mason City Globe Gazette.


Related: Iowa Slottery Infiltrating Everywhere

Iowa Speedway Update

Yesterday there were stories in the Newton Daily News and the Des Moines Register concerning the lack of progress with the Iowa Speedway in Newton.

It looks like the Newton City Council has finally acquired some healthy skepticism and is putting the brakes on spending millions in taxpayer dollars on road improvements until the project's backers acquire financing, supposedly from the shifty UBG Financial.

For more news stories about the project that date back to 2000, visit this web site.

I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!

From the Washington Evening Journal:

Many of the roughly 50, mostly rural, Washington County residents who filled the main courtroom of the County Courthouse for the hearing had strong words for both the supervisors and casino developers. They accused the casino of misleading voters and the county supervisors of going along with a plan that would use tax dollars to build casino infrastructure.

"It's not what was presented at the beginning, when the casino was presented to the people," said Christine Thomann of rural north Washington County.

Most voiced dissatisfaction with-and some showed contempt for-the Washington County Board of Supervisors and its plans to establish a tax increment financing district in partnership with the City of Riverside and Washington County Casino Resort, at a public hearing last night.

The TIF district would allow the City of Riverside to divert Washington County property tax dollars to build a more than $10 million sewer and water system east of Highway 218 that would serve the casino and future Riverside development.

We had to reorder the paragraphs in the news story so that it would make sense, but you get the idea of what's going on here. More fleecing of the taxpayers.

Eighth Grader Kicked Out Of School For Having A List Of People He Found "Annoying"

From the Burlington Hawk Eye:

STRONGHURST, Ill. — An eighth–grader at West Central Junior High has been removed from school and may face a charge of disorderly conduct after school officials learned last week about a list that named students and school staff the boy considered irritating...

There was no indication any other students at the school were involved in creation of the list, which Grimm said contained the names of people the boy found "annoying."

Henderson County Sheriff Mark Lumbeck was to meet with school officials Tuesday as part of his office's investigation of the incident.

He said findings from the investigation would go to the state juvenile probation office and to the Henderson County state's attorney's office. An investigative report should be in the hands of State's Attorney Ray Cavanaugh by week's end, Lumbeck said.

Because no action was taken beyond compiling a list of names, Lumbeck said the only crime the boy could be charged with is disorderly conduct for disrupting the school environment.

Kelly Jensen better not move to Stronghurst.

Register Editorial On Iowa's Weird Sex Offender Residency Law

An excellent editorial from the Register Editorial Board today:

The U.S. Supreme Court Tuesday declined to hear an appeal from a group of Iowans challenging the state's 2,000-foot [sex offender] residency law. But surely at some point the courts will rule these laws unconstitutional...

Our system of criminal justice is supposed to operate from the principle that once convicted criminals have served their time and paid their debt to society, they are free to return to it. The sex-offender restrictions violate that principle. Even after prison sentences and paroles, the state marks these individuals as potential criminals for the remainder of their lives...

The ability to live somewhere is a right. The ability to travel is a right. Freedom from being punished twice for the same crime is a right. Freedom from being punished for a crime that is created after the fact is a right. Those rights are protected by the U.S. and Iowa constitutions — for everyone.

Defenders of state laws imposing lifetime punishments on convicted sex offenders have gotten away with indifference to the civil-liberties implications of such laws because of the detestable nature of the crime. But if the state has unlimited power to punish people for the remainder of their lives for one class of crimes, it has the power to apply that punishment to any person for any or all crimes. Government should not have that power.

Wow, they sound a lot like Ed Fallon! And us!!!

This is a really well-written editorial. Whoever crafted it, take a bow.

It certainly wasn't David Yepsen, that's for sure.


Related: Ban Everybody

Basu On The Dyess Case

Rekha Basu has an excellent column today on the Tracey Dyess case.

You can be certain that Tom Vilsack will do nothing concerning Tracey Dyess in the time he has left in office, just like he has done nothing for Dixie Shanahan. To reduce the Dyess sentence would be to admit that the Iowa DHS totally screwed up again while on his watch, something he doesn't need after the Evelyn Miller or Jetseta Gage situations happened.

We don't understand why a prosecutor would go after such an obvious victim as Tracey Dyess, especially since she was a minor. And what's with the jury? It just doesn't make any sense.

New DM School Board Member Full Of Dumb Ideas

From the Des Moines Register:

A Des Moines school board member opposed to closing five elementary school buildings is floating a radical idea — why not close Roosevelt High School instead?

"That will get everybody mad at me, but it's an idea," Dick Murphy said this week.

Murphy, who is president of the Hoover High booster club, would have Roosevelt students go to North and Hoover high schools. Central Campus would move its programs to Roosevelt. The idea stands no chance of passage, but reflects continuing frustration about the board's decision to close schools.

Perhaps Dick Murphy's next step at hating Roosevelt High School will be to propose renaming it in honor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt rather than that Republican asshole Teddy.


Related: Iowa Still Soft On School Board Presidents Who Drive Drunk and Des Moines School Board Member Jim Patch Wants Kids Who Can't Read To Pass To The Next Grade Level and "All D minuses and two F's is not a high standard by any stretch" and That's A Recipe For Anarchy and Moving Forward And Lurching Onto The Sidewalk and What's For Lunch At East High In Des Moines?

My Endowment Is Bigger Than Your Endowment, But We Don't Want You To See It

From the Des Moines Register:

The University of Iowa announced today that it had reached its $1 billion fundraising goal four weeks ahead of the campaign’s official conclusion.

"Thanks to an incredibly generous response from our alumni and other friends and supporters, by early this year we'd stopped wondering 'if?' and had begun asking ourselves, 'when?' Today, I think the question has become, 'how much more?'" said U of I Foundation chief development officer Michael New in a statement on the foundation's Web site.

This is the same UI Foundation that is lobbying the Board of Regents to keep donor information secret.


Related: Endowment For Me But Not For Thee and We reserve the right in the future to deny requests for similar information and That $200 Will Break Ya In Grinnell

Rural Broadband

Updated below:



There's a big story in the New Yawk Times today concerning rural broadband that's worth a look, mostly for the humor value.

The poor suckas they've profiled who can't easily download free pr0n, MP3z, and wAreZ live in the outer exurbs near Dallas Center, just NW of Des Moines. And judging from the picture of their frickin huge and brand-new house, they could easily afford a two-way residential satellite broadband service like StarBand.

The point of the story is that Congress created a loan program to speed up development of rural broadband, but the Agriculture Department, which oversees the loan program, rejects twice as many applications as they approve. The best quote is from Senator Tom Harkin:

"This has created ridiculous situations where companies have sought $5 million and as a condition for approval they have been required to have that much money in the bank," said Senator Tom Harkin, Democrat of Iowa, who helped create the program and is now a big critic of the agency's handling of it. "If they have that much money in the bank, why would they need the loan?"

OK. Has Tom Harkin ever heard of Wells Fargo and all the corporate welfare they got from Iowa's taxpayers? Christ.

And who's tight with the money? It's Harkin's least favorite under secretary for rural development in the Agriculture Department, Tom Dorr:

Agriculture Department officials acknowledge that the program has had a slow start and agree that some of the financial restrictions may need to be revised. But the rules, those officials say, were meant to ensure that borrowers were financially stable and that the loans would be repaid in full.

"I am empathetic to those concerns, but we do have a responsibility to make sure that we utilize the taxpayers' dollars judiciously," said Tom Dorr, the Agriculture Department's under secretary for rural development.

Unlike, say, Clark McLeod, the broadbandit.


Update: A reader points out that Senator Grassley helped secure a $9.475 million guaranteed loan for LISCO so that the 9500 residents of Fairfield could have fiber run to their house by 2007 (original story here and a more fleshed-out story is here).

That seems like an awfully large amount of money: $1000 for every man, woman, and yogic flyer in Fairfield. We don't think there's any chance in hell that LISCO will ever pay back the loan because even with 100% participation it would take years of profitability for that to happen. Remember, it's a "guaranteed" loan (wink, wink) by the Feds, so you know who will be paying for that one in the long run: your grandchildren's grandchildren. Once again, Senator Chuck Grassley, the fauxscal conservative, continues to screw taxpayers while lining the pockets of others.

Drew Miller Is A Genius

From Drew Miller's Blog:

I encourage you to read all of David Yepsen's column analyzing the KCCI poll, and then compare it to my coverage. I think you'll agree that David Yepsen is an idiot.

When we read Yepsen's column today, we figured Miller would have a followup.

Our consensus: Why the heck did it take Yepsen 10 days to write a column about that KCCI poll?

A snarky comment The Ed got back from one of our contributors was: "Did Bill Knapp pay for that poll?"

Ouch.

Side Notes

Side Notes continues, but the "other blog" is now officially gone.

Is That Chain Letter Meat-Free?

Terry Fischer of Aledo has a letter in the QC Times today accusing the newspaper of printing a chain letter from a vegan asking people to not eat meat at Thanksgiving.

Here's the chain letter that was published. It was sent it by Dick Evans of Davenport.

This same letter was printed in numerous other newspapers throughout the United States, according to this Google News search. And no, they weren't all written by Mr Evans.

Go to regular old Google and you'll find even more newspapers who were suckered into printing this chain letter.

Even the Des Moines Register printed the chain letter. This was by Daniel Undrow of Des Moines.

We couldn't determine the origin of the Thanksgiving chain letter campaign, unlike past chain letter campaigns that have gone on throughout Iowa and the United States.

"Obviously, we always like to win"

Check out this Todd Dorman piece in the QC Times concerning the aftermath of the SCOTUS deciding to not listen to the appeal of Iowa's weird sex offender residency law:

“The 2,000-foot rule is one little piece out of a whole bunch of things we have done,’’ said Senate Democratic Leader Mike Gronstal of Council Bluffs. “I don’t think anyone sees it as a panacea that’s going to get rid of all these crimes.’’

Rants and Gronstal said it’s likely lawmakers will do more when they return to the Statehouse in January.

Both leaders said they’ll push for “real-time’’ electronic monitoring of sex offenders deemed to be at a high risk to re-offend. Real-time monitoring would use satellite technology to track an offender’s whereabouts, although lawmakers have yet to determine the feasibility or cost of such an elaborate system.

“If the electronic monitor shows he’s parked across the street from an elementary school, somebody can go out and find the guy and figure out what he’s doing,’’ Gronstal said.

First question to Mike Gronstal: Who the hell is going to pay for this technology?

Second question to Mike Gronstal: Who the hell is going to be monitoring all the sex offenders? Today there's 563 registered sex offenders on Iowa's list just from Polk County alone.

Third question to Mike Gronstal: What's with this "I don’t think anyone sees it as a panacea that’s going to get rid of all these crimes." - Wait a second, Gronstal. If you subscribe to the Governor Yepsen line of thinking, and if there are no sex offenders living in Iowa due to laws that essentially make them legal refugees, then doesn't that solve your problem? Doesn't that move all the sex offenders out of Iowa and into neighboring states? You've won, then, Gronstal! Case closed. How come you need to do more?

Fourth question to Gronstal (and that pussywhipped Christopher Rants): Did you all forget that Vilsack gave all the sex offenders back their voting rights with his executive order so that they can walk into an elementary school on election day, vote, and maybe snatch a kid into the bathroom on their way out so they can be sexually abused or killed?

All of Iowa's politicians, except for Ed Fallon, have seriously fucked up on this issue from a civil libertarian's point of view. Yes, we all want to protect kids from sex offenders, but the vast majority of these offenses come from people the parents know and/or allow the abuse to happen. Ask Tracey Dyess. Ask Jetseta Gage, oh wait, no you can't - she's dead.

Instead of forcing sex offenders into treatment and having longer prison sentences for the worst scum, Iowa has chosen to take now-law-abiding people and turn them into criminals as a result of their address.

What's next? Are we going to have laws that force murderers who are out and off parole, people previously convicted of manslaughter, robbers, rapists, burglars, wife beaters, meth makers, and drunk drivers who kill to register and live within certain geographical distances of schools, bars, banks, and convenience stores?

Yes, it would be nice not to have to deal with all the people we deem sociopaths out there by moving them to some concentration camp in the California desert or Poland or French Guiana, but society also has to assume that a lot of these offenders maybe won't reoffend if they're propertly rehabilitated or treated. If they do reoffend, we already have something in place for them: prison.

The Iowa City Police Department Has A Segway

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Iowa City police have one, but still can't figure out what to do with the Segway donated to the department in late September.

"We haven't really found out how we're going to use it yet," Iowa City Police Sgt. Doug Hart said. "There are some issues to work out in terms of policies and procedure."

Carousel Motors donated the Segway HT to the Iowa City Police Department in late September. It made it's first and only public appearance in the University of Iowa homecoming parade Sept. 30 and has been kept in a storage room ever since, Hart said.

How about putting it on Ebay, auctioning it off to the highest bidder, and the donating the proceeds to some local children's charity? OK? Those things are totally worthless.

The IDiOT Scandal

Drew Miller has an excellent post concerning two letters to the editor in the Register today concerning the Bill Knapp/Mark Wandro/Tom Vilsack/Hell, Everybody scandal concerning the new IDOT license station in Ankeny for Polk County.

The letters are located here. Scroll down a bit past the people weeping for the loss of the Cathy comic strip in the DMR.

For what is essentially a Democratic scandal involving insider trading and windfall profits, the Republicans in Iowa sure have fucked up the handling of it as evidenced by Rants' "water under the bridge" quote and Clel Baudler's foolish dribblings. Democrats should thank their lucky stars every day that a dumbfucking idiot like Christopher Rants has senior status for the Republicans in the Iowa House. How Rants manages to tie his shoes in the morning without hanging himself by his neck is beyond our comprehension.

GIS Mapping In Rural Iowa

From the Centerville Daily Iowegian:

GIS technology is a computer-based mapping tool that takes information from a database about a location, such as streets, buildings, water features and terrain, and turns it into visual layers. The system catalogs and inventories these locations.

Though it is only 30 years old, it is said GIS technology is everywhere, always in progress and way beyond MapQuest. It can provide out-of-state businesses with visual data, including railway access, water hookups, zoning restrictions and even competitors. It can even predict the future in some cases to estimate employment growth, business booms and population changes.

Aerial photographs of Appanoose County were taken from an airplane in 1999.
"They knew where the points were through a ground control survey and the photos were digitized using those points," said Armstrong.

In Secondary Roads, Foster is working to create an engineer's database, a management system of all roads, bridges, driveways, culverts and pavement - even showing what kind of pavement it is.

"Then we won't have to look in several paper files for information, we'll have a major inventory of information and access it with just a point and click on a map," Armstrong added...

For the zoning commission, Foster is working on compiling data that will tell all about zoning information for individual plats. In the near future, people can go to their computer and find the information online.

"That will make it a lot easier for people to tell how their property is zoned," said Armstrong.

Foster demonstrated on his computer how individual properties can be brought up on the computer maps, showing the owner, valuation of the property, even if the taxes have been paid or not.

In about two or three years, Armstrong said the major project should be completed, but the zoning will probably be online in only six months or so. Their goal is to have everything on line, but a lot of their plans depend on funding. They are hoping to get some grants and other funds.

IowaAssessors.com is a portal that shows all the counties and communities in Iowa that have their parcel data online.

Being able to easily look up information about a property has many different uses. Knowing who owns it (or who rents it, in the case of Davenport), what the taxes are and if they've been paid, if any permits have been applied for in the past few years, and past assessment valuations are all key data if you're looking to purchase property.

ISU President announces 2006 Veishea riot policy

Ha ha, just having some fun with that headline, which was co-opted from this story at WHO-TV:

Iowa State University President Gregory Geoffroy has laid down some rules for next year's Veishea celebration.

Alcohol will be allowed but participants in the annual spring festival must be 21 and they must strictly follow the standard policy, which means no drinking in public areas on campus.

The festival has been marred by riots in the past, including one last year that resulted in dozens of arrests and 250-thousand dollars in damage.

We predict more riots in the future for Ames, ISU, and VEISHEA.

SCOTUS Refuses To Hear Appeal Of Iowa's Weird Sex Offender Residency Law

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Key lawmakers of both parties cheered a Supreme Court decision letting stand tight restrictions on where sex offenders can live after leaving prison, but warned lawmakers are virtually certain to debate the topic again when they convene in January.

``It's a work in progress and I think you'll see us continue to work,'' said Sen. Bob Dvorsky, D-Coralville. ``There needs to be more revision of that law and the situation it's created in Iowa and elsewhere.''

The Legislature in 2002 passed a tough new sex abuse law toughening penalties and tightening supervision of sex offenders, with one key provision being a re-quirement that those offenders can't live within 2,000 feet of a school or day care facility.

Critics say that restriction means sex offenders simply can't live in many towns in the state, and effectively continues their punishment after being released from prison. A federal appeals court had upheld the restriction, and the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear an appeal of that decision, leaving the 2,000-foot ban standing.

If that's the case, then why doesn't the Iowa Legislature not allow convicted murderers who are released from prison from living within 2000 feet of a school or daycare? What about armed robbers? Burglars? Wife-beaters? Drunk drivers who kill? Meth makers?

Maybe David Yepsen and Christopher Rants and Mike Gronstal and Tom Vilsack all want these sacks of shit living in Iowa, but we don't.

Rainforest Stories You Might Have Missed

Rainforest Scam And Lies Blown Wide Open

and

Des Moines Register Bends Over For Filthy Governor Ray And The Rainforest Con-Artists

and

Filthy Ray Imposes A Deadline On Coralville

The Daily Iowan has a story today that doesn't really add anything new except lame quotes from the head of Kirkwood Community College and the superintendent of the Clear Creek-Amana school district.

But you've got to love today's piece by the DI Editorial Board. It rocks:

The promise of an indoor rain forest in Coralville never stirred within us a great deal of enthusiasm, but the behavior of the leadership of the Iowa Environmental/Education Project of late has hardly been helping its case - and it points to an underlying problem regarding how large projects and Iowa's communities interact.

From the beginning, the rain forest has been a top-down endeavor - the people of Coralville did not come up with the idea, nor was theirs the first city to be considered by the people who did. This hardly makes the project unique, as cities are often left attempting to snare the big ideas of private developers - and the big money that comes with them. This can also place the burden on cities to keep the projects in town - the project only settled on Coralville after striking out with Des Moines and Cedar Rapids, and project-board Chairman Robert Ray is now threatening to pursue "other alternatives" if the city does not fulfill a series of conditions.

The terms outlined in Ray's letter are outrageous. Not only do they go beyond the original agreement that brought the project to Coralville - the city must now provide 25-30 acres of land, for example, instead of the 22 originally agreed upon - but the rain-forest organizers have shown little sign of reciprocal commitment to the city.

The city is still waiting for an outline of the project's progress and plans for development, which it had asked for in August. Meanwhile, the $50 million federal grant, which has provided the majority of the project's funding and expenses to date, has become conditional on the project's ability to raise $50 million more over the next two years. Ray's desire for a commitment by Coralville to raise $40 million for the project, which may or may not include the $30 million already invested by the city, seems particularly suspect.

Other than the project's federal funding being given a caveat that any successful project should be easily able to satisfy in any case, nothing has changed to justify this litany of new conditions. Rain-forest organizers are essentially demanding that the Coralville City Council avow its commitment to the project while keeping the council in the dark regarding its viability and progress.

Coralville has already been unbelievably patient with the rain forest's organizers, more so than we would have preferred. It would be irresponsible for the city to grant further concessions to the directors of an enterprise that must still prove itself to be a workable project rather than simply an interesting idea. The manner in which its organizers have conducted themselves is unacceptable for any project: Rather than present a transparent, serious business plan for the rain forest's construction and operation, they have offered vague promises, now coupled with veiled threats.

We have long been skeptical of the rain-forest concept, but the real problem goes deeper. So long as large developers can threaten to take their business elsewhere if their terms are not met, communities will not see their interests very well served. For something as problematic as the rain forest has shown itself, we may simply say good riddance. Coralville's experience, however, should demonstrate the need for a reassessment of how large developments should be managed in the future.

That editorial totally kicks ass, unlike the Des Moines Register's limp coverage, which licks ass.

Your Weekly Dorman

Todd Dorman in the QC Times:

I was in the midst of my typically bland daily drive from Ames to Des Moines last week when glowing brake lights in the distance warned our commuter herd to slip out of cruise control.

Roadwork blocked one lane and slowed traffic to a sputtering standstill. Most drivers began a long single-file wait.

At 75 mph, the interstate is a gray ribbon of pavement hemmed in by the brownish-green blur of medians and ditches. But things are different at a dead stop. That’s when you find out the thousands of drivers using our nice, neat interstate every day are by no means neat.

Upon closer inspection, the median really is a drive-through dump.

He's so right.

Here's his conclusion:

The study estimated that taxpayers fork over $13.5 million annually to clean up litter. Some have argued that Iowa’s litter fines should be boosted to help pay that bill and to discourage littering.

But the Legislature isn’t all that interested. A bill that would have raised state littering fines from the current $15 to $30 in state parks and from $35 to $100 on highways didn’t make it past square one.

Lawmakers seem more interested in pleasing grocers by doing away with the state’s bottle and can deposit law. Keep Iowa Beautiful and environmentalists argue such a change would make the state’s roadside litter problem even worse.

The Legislature should raise paltry litter fines to send a message that the issue matters. Lawmakers also could allow local law enforcement to impound the vehicles of those caught illegally dumping trash. And they could offer rewards for citizens who report litterers and dumpers.

If the fines were much higher than the average cost of a speeding ticket, wouldn't that change the focus of the Highway Patrol a bit since most deadly accidents, at least lately, do not involve speed? That might be a good idea.

Litterers are bad people. Why not create an Iowa Litterer Database so that we can track all the people convicted of littering who live amongst us? Maybe then we can craft some legislation that forces them to live within 2000 feet of a dump.

Vilsack Involved With the Knapp/DOT Deal?

Midwest Mesopotamia has a post on the Bill Knapp/Mark Wandro/Polk County Driver's License station controversy from Cityview Des Moines. Tom Vilsack is clearly involved with this debacle.

And guess who was there to question it all along? That's right, our man Ed Fallon.

Iowa Interstate Deaths

We've had Google News Alerts for any media mentions of accidents on Iowa's interstates ever since the speed limits have raised to 70 mph, but it's surprising to see how many recent deaths have been due to anything but speed.

Examples:

Mason City Globe Gazette:

Three people, including a 4-month-old child, were killed Saturday in an accident on Interstate 35, south of Ames.

Bethany Ann Hanson, 21, of Goodell, Haylee Hanson, 4 months, also of Goodell, and Frank Edgar Strable, 70, of Indianola, died in the crash, the Iowa State Patrol said.

A car driven by Bethany Hanson was southbound on I-35 about 8:50 a.m. when it crossed the median and into the northbound lanes of traffic, the patrol said.

Hansen's car struck a car driven by Strable. Both cars entered the ditch where they caught fire, the patrol said.

KCRG:

An accident along Interstate 380 in Hiawatha Friday morning killed a man and small child.

It happened near the Boyson Road overpass shortly before 6:30. Hiawatha Police say it appears as though a northbound vehicle crossed the medium and crashed into an oncoming vehicle.

The mother of the child also died recently, so that accident claimed three people.

Also, earlier this month, via KCRG:

Traffic is flowing again on Interstate 380 in Cedar Rapids following a deadly pedestrian accident this morning. Police have not identified the victim yet but we can tell you it involved somebody on foot on the interstate who was hit by a construction truck.

This was later ruled a suicide.

Here's a recent accident on I-80, via the QC Times:

An accident Wednesday night on Interstate 80 near West Branch, Iowa, killed a young woman and sent seven others — all undocumented Mexican nationals — to the hospital.

According to Iowa State Police, Lisa Rees, 22, originally of Elkhart, Iowa, was westbound on I-80 about 7 p.m. when her 2005 Celica crossed the median and was hit by a Chevrolet Suburban.

From the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpariel:

Two people died in an accident near Harlan on Tuesday as the season's first snowfall made for treacherous morning and evening commutes and sent cars and trucks sliding into ditches and each other as more than a dozen accidents were reported...

Page's car collided with a northbound car driven by Phillip Nielsen, 52, of Kirkman. Nielsen was unable to avoid Page's vehicle on the 100 percent ice-covered road and crashed into the passenger door, the sheriff's office said.

Sure doesn't look like raising the speed limit on Iowa's interstates had anything to do with these deaths.

We didn't cherry-pick media reports, either. That's all the deaths that have been reported in the major Iowa media via Google News over the past few weeks.

Another Iowa Sex Offender Residency Law Post

A recent post by the Plains Feeder blog is critical of our opinion of Iowa's sex offender residency law and the further restrictions that communities and counties, particularly Polk County, have been adding.

Why do some people support such restrictions?

We're not even going to address such simple-minded nonsense as Governor Yepsen's tantrum about the "offender lobby" or how he'd like to see every person put on the Iowa Sex Offender database to be shipped to some French penal colony or whatever.

How about a killer like Loren Huss? He's not in the sex offender database, despite being convicted of rape in the 1980s. Do rapists and killers who have been deemed no longer a threat to the public by a Polk County Jury and released from psyche ward get a free pass?

How about drunk drivers who kill and who get out and eventually get picked up again for drunk driving? Should they be allowed to live amongst us?

What about people convicted of armed robbery? They don't just prey on little children, you know.

How about burglars? They aren't any good.

What about longtime petty criminals who are on welfare and don't pay their fines? Do we want that in Iowa?

And if felons are such bad people, why are we letting them vote?

We simply don't understand why it's OK to restrict the residency of certain sex offenders, but not other criminals. If anybody want to take a shot at explaining themselves, feel free to write up a post and email us at state29@gmail.com and we'll link, read, discuss, and respond.

FluffyButts Reunites Toppy

From the Quad City Times:

For the past several weeks, Toppy the chihuahua acted as snarly and nippy as a Midwestern winter.

Toppy, who had become accustomed to having toastier pavement under his paws as a southern pooch from New Orleans, had ended up in the Quad-Cities after Hurricane Katrina separated him from his owner, Myra Clark. A group from Fairfield, Iowa, called Heavenly Pets Sanctuary had made the trip to the Big Easy to retrieve animals lost in the storm.

When he reached Iowa, FluffyButts Rescue Resort of Washington, Iowa, found Toppy an adopted home. The group also posted a picture of Toppy on a Web site called Petfinder.com in the hopes that his original owner might track him down.

Clark found Toppy on the Web site, and on Friday, the pair had a reunion that warmed the cockles of everybody’s hearts.

Quite an amazing story. Make sure you read the whole thing.

Rainforest Scam And Lies Blown Wide Open

Read this article by reporter Zach Kucharski in this weekend's Cedar Rapids Gazette on how David Oman and Filthy Ray have been flirting with Dubuque for months on the Rainforest project.


Update: You can tell by the documents that Kucharski discovered via open records request (Notice that the Des Moines Register hasn't bothered with such requests! -Ed.) that the only money Dirty Oman and Filthy Ray are seeking are taxpayer or gambling dollars. They clearly have no intention of raising any private money. Probably because they can't.

Would Dirty Oman and Filthy Ray please explain what interstate highway with 50,000 vehicles a day rolls through Dubuque? That's right, none do. You've got to wonder if Oman and Ray will scale back their already-bogus attendance numbers (1.1 to 1.5 million per year) if they move their rainforest scam to Dubuque.

And what about Senator Chuck Grassley? Is he changing the language of the 2003 grant request, of which Oman has already spent $2.9 million, to move the focus from Johnson County to all of Iowa? If this is the case, then What Did The Senator Know And When Did He Know It?

Des Moines Register Bends Over For Filthy Governor Ray And The Rainforest Con-Artists

Check out the one-sided, day-late piece that Jennifer Jacobs writes for the Des Moines Register concerning Filthy Ray's demands upon the City of Coralville concerning the Rainforest project.

What an abomination of journalism.

The Register is simply too in-bed with the Omans and too adoring of this fleecing of Iowa and Federal taxpayers to be objective.

Iowa Ennui On Vilsack's Insurance Scam

Iowa Ennui has an excellent post on Vilsack's scam to raise cigarette taxes in order to "pay for" a pool of money in which small businesses can dip from in order to subsidize health care costs for workers.

The only problem is that Tom Vilsack continues to be a liar when it comes to health care.

The tobacco company settlement? Most of that money went various make-work projects around the state that were bonded out until the end of time.

Any money possibly raised by increasing tobacco taxes is going to the general budget where it can be squandered on corporate welfare or expanded state government.

Forget the details because Vilsack is always in serious need of a laxative for his mouth.

The Dyess Case

A couple of days ago we were critical of the sentence in the case involving Tracey Dyess and called it a travesty.

Today, the Register Editorial Board feels the same way.

Why wasn't she allowed an insanity defense? It would have made sense, considering the circumstances. If she had been allowed to plead guilty to such a charge, then she could have been sent away for treatment.

Picking Up The Humpday-Turkeyday Slack From Iowahawk

No "Humpday Dumpday" post from Iowahawk this week, so we'll take up the slack.



Here's a tall blonde female with with blue eyes and perfect skin who's entered the pokey on Tuesday for a probation violation.

Give this babe a new haircut from Jonathan Antin and this midwestern almost-hottie might be on her way towards a better career path.




What landed this gal in the slammer for Contempt Of Court must have been her piercing gaze. What judge wouldn't want to say, "Take a picture, it'll last longer" to his trusty bailiffs?

Bonus points for the slight upturn at the corners of her mouth. It's no Tom DeLay smile, but making the most of a temporarily bad situation is always best.

Senator Tom Harkin Supports Clemency For Celebrity-Courted Death Row Killer

Senator Tom Harkin, according to the Arizona Daily Sun, has announced support for clemency of convicted multiple killer and Crips founder Stanley Tookie Williams, who is on death row in California.

Others supporting clemency for Tookie include the usual far-leftist suspects like Mike Farrell, Bianca Jagger, Russell Crowe, as well as race pimps/criminal appeasers Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte, and Jesse Jackson.

Filthy Ray Imposes A Deadline On Coralville

It's hardly a surprise, but the Rainforest goon squad sent former Governor Bob "Filthy" Ray to impose a deadline and request other demands upon Coralville's City Council concerning the Rainforest project (story from the Waterloo Courier over at the PorkForest web site).

Also note this story in the Iowa City Press-Citizen where Filthy Ray wants the City of Coralville to come up with $40 million for the project, on top of everything else they've given so far:

Councilor Tom Gill said project leaders would not receive written support from him under the terms Ray's letter sets out, specifically the request for more land, wanting the land free of the city's proposed encumbrances -- which Gill called essential -- and wanting city leaders to ensure $40 million in fundraising.

"How can we raise $40 million when they haven't raised a cent?" Gill said.

Tom Gill was right after all. This should ensure that the project, at least in Coralville, is now dead dead deadski.

But what's next? Where is this gang of highly-esteemed and politically-connected fraudsters and con-artists going next with the Rainforest project? Dubuque? Des Moines? Maybe a particular I-35 exit ramp near Ankeny? As far as we're concerned, David Oman, Bob "Filthy" Ray, and especially Senator Chuck Grassley deserve to be prosecuted for fraud and sent to a Federal "pound me in the ass" prison for what they've done.

Tom Vilsack Is Such A Dumbass

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Gov. Tom Vilsack said Tuesday he has removed the warden of the Iowa State Penitentiary in the wake of a high-profile escape and asked for a study on building a new maximum security prison.

Ken Burger has been relieved of his duties and will be replaced by John Ault, warden of a medium security prison in Anamosa, the governor said. Burger will be reassigned and will soon retire...

Burger was superintendent at the Mount Pleasant Correctional Facility before becoming warden at Fort Madison in January 2004. He was honored in June 2004 by the governor with a "Leader of the Year" award, which recognizes achievement in a particular area such as staff development or effective management.

Gee, another Vilsack f-up. And now he has his convenient fall guy.

Vilsack seems to have had more convicts escape from Iowa's prisons under his watch than the last several governors combined. Any reporter want to look that number up?

How can Vilsack up the ante in order to cloud over the real issue? Easy:

Vilsack said he also has asked the state's board of corrections for a recommendation on building a new maximum security prison to replace the one in Fort Madison, which was built in 1839.

"We're going to suggest that the Director of Corrections and the Board of Corrections submit to me within 30 days a report as to whether or not a prison that began operations in 1839 is currently what it needs to be or whether we ought to consider a new facility in Fort Madison," the governor said.

"Obviously if the recommendation is that a new prison could be more effective, more efficient, safer and more secure, then we might take a look at how that could be financed," the governor said.

The current prison, which can hold up to 550 inmates, was extensively renovated in 1982 when the large cell blocks were divided into smaller, self-contained living units.

Vilsack estimated the cost of a new prison at $40 million with an annual operating budget of $6 million.

"It's an awfully expensive proposal relative to dollars and cents, but the idea is can we provide for a more secure environment, could a new prison be operated less expensively," Vilsack said.

He said the state could save as much as $5 million a year by running a more efficient and modern prison using new technology.

"You might actually be able to pay for the new facility by the savings that would occur," he said.

What a bunch of BS.

Save money by spending $40 $80 $120 millions on a new prison??? Is he nuts? No, he's just trying to cover his inept ass.

A Celebration Of Life

Don't miss Rekha Basu's column today in the DMR. It's a good one, despite the obvious urge to interject some political points here and there.

She actually mentions husband Rob Borsellino's ALS, which is something we don't think we've seen before to such an extent. Here's the best part of the column:

The truth is, I never had anything real to worry about before. And now that I do, I won't waste valuable time worrying. It's living I'm more interested in — with Rob and the kids, in the time we have together.

I have a few friends who are consumed by rage and stress, who walk around depressed and ready to pick fights. I've been urging them not to sweat the small stuff, and to make things right with family and friends they've fallen out with — because they might not have the chance later.

This is a bittersweet Thanksgiving, but Kruidenier's Celebration of Life puts it into valuable perspective. There's so much you can't control, but one thing you can. You can make the most of life while you have it.

Indeed.

The Return Of Ron Speltz

A reader in Marion tips us off to this story published on the front page of the Cedar Rapids Gazette yesterday:

Ron Speltz of Ely never expected his moment of fame to come from a fight with the government over a quarter-million-dollar tax bill.

Sandra Lafferty of Cedar Rapids never suspected she would be clobbered by a tax bill so overwhelming that she would have to sacrifice her credit record by filing bankruptcy.

Welcome to the world of Iowans who face massive tax bills on profits never realized.

Most were executives whose employers granted them incentive stock options to reward their loyalty. Few knew how this special form of incentive pay could be affected by a set of federal tax rules called Alternative Minimum Tax.

The chance to become a stock millionaire, or at least accumulate a comfortable retirement, was the dream. ISO programs allow employees to buy company stock at a price much lower than market value.

But stock options were a tax trap for many who bought during the early stage of the stock market downturn in 2000 and 2001. As prices plummeted, shareholders hung onto their stock in hopes the market would recover.

Then they began receiving tax notices for huge tax obligations they had not foreseen.

The IRS maintains the ISO shareholders owe tax on the difference between the amount they paid for their shares and the market value of those shares at the time they were purchased - not the value of their shares a year later, after the stock market swooned.

The tax code requires the IRS to take that position, officials say, even when taxpayers realized no profit from a stock sale.

Speltz, 38, works at McLeodUSA, where an e-mail survey turned up at least 125 employees who had suffered a similar fate.

Speltz himself had invested seven years of savings, about $34,000, into 30,000 shares of McLeodUSA stock. His options allowed him to pay a little over $1 per share for stock that was trading for about $24.

By the time Speltz sold the stock, it was worth about $2,000.

The tax bill totaled $263,000, representing the difference between the amount Speltz paid for the shares and their market value when he bought them.

Speltz and his wife, June, drained their investments and savings and borrowed from relatives to muster enough to pay half of the tax bill.

But paying half only seemed to convince the IRS that the Speltzes could pay the total, making the agency less flexible in efforts to reach a settlement.

After paying his lawyers and part of his taxes, Ron Speltz said, he is in worse financial condition than he was at age 14, despite having the financial needs of a family.

"It's caused us to change everything in life," he said. "It's shoved us into a position where we literally have a hard time putting food on our table."

The Speltzes fought back harder than most, taking their case to tax court, where they lost. It is now on the way to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.

Tax specialist Dick George of RSM McGladrey in Cedar Rapids has worked with many clients hurt by ISO AMT, most of whom were employed at McLeodUSA. He said some borrowed money to pay their tax bills, while others tried to make a deal with the IRS, and still others sold their stock to pay their tax bills.

George said employers have become better about informing their employees about the possible consequences of ISO AMT.

Sandra Lafferty, 46, didn't even understand the ISO AMT bills on her husband's stock options with a telecommunications company until her divorce. He agreed in their divorce settlement to pay them. More than a year later, when she had taken a full-time job to support her three children, the government came after her because the debt remained unpaid.

"It didn't matter what the divorce decree said or that it was income from his employment," she said. "It was a joint return."

Lafferty and Speltz are members of the Coalition for Tax Fairness, a group working to reform ISO AMT rules.

The Speltz case has been told again and again in the financial media throughout the country, including prominent articles in the New York Times and Business Week.

Virtually everybody who's heard the story agrees that the tax is unfair, Speltz said. Now, the Coalition for Tax Fairness says it may finally be in a position to change the unfair rules.

House bill 3385, introduced in July by Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, would refund AMT tax credits to the taxpayer over five years.

"It will get something on the table that will pass the Congress, and give the affected people a ray of hope that things will get better," said Tim Carlson, president of the coalition.

Rep. Jim Leach, R-Iowa, recently signed on as a co-sponsor of the bill.

"This will resolve what has obviously become a clear inequity," Leach said.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, supports the intent of Johnson's legislation, said spokeswoman Jill Kozeny. She said Grassley hopes it will become an issue for House-Senate conference negotiations on Grassley's tax reconciliation bill, which passed the Senate last week. If not, he hopes the House will send the Senate an AMT bill including the changes.

While we disagree with many aspects of the AMT, especially the lack of indexing for inflation since it was introduced in 1969, we think Ron Speltz and Sandra Lafferty should not be the poster children as to why the AMT should be changed or abolished.

Ask any retired couple who took a payout with a company that caused a triggering of the AMT for one year yet are forced to file AMT paperwork for the rest of their lives. Ask a two-income family of professionals whose yearly earnings put them over AMT levels. These are the people that newspapers should be profiling, but it's hard for newspapers to by sympathetic to the so-called "rich" because they're mostly run by envious Socialists.

While it was unfortunate that Speltz's greed and alleged ignorance at tax matters caused him such a high tax bill, idiots who gamble with laws designed for rich executives to milk the system and avoid paying higher tax rates on their stock options deserve their fate.

Maybe the law should be changed so that people exercising company stock options should be forced to sell them at the time they exercise them. Surely the rich and speculative rich would balk at such a change, but it does make sense if you want to protect "little guys" like Speltz.

We think the legislation introduced in Congress is complete BS. Without indexing the AMT to inflation, and factoring inflation since 1969 which would cause the removal of at least 98% of the people caught in the AMT web today, it's just another headache for CPAs.


Related: The Speltz Story Spun and The Speltzes Hit The New York Times and The Dismantling Of McLeod USA Continues and Who Are The Real Fat Cats?

This One's Dedicated To Chet Culver And It's Called "Karma Police"

From the Home Office on 10th Street, here's the Ed Fallon itinerary for Thanksgiving Day:

FALLON TO SPEND THANKSGIVING PERFORMING MUSIC AT LOCAL MEALSITES

Gubernatorial candidate State Representative Ed Fallon will spend Thanksgiving Day playing music at meal sites for low-income Iowans throughout Des Moines.

“Music is something everyone enjoys, especially at the holidays,” Fallon said. “I want to do what I can to make the day special. I have a strong passion for justice, and it shouldn’t be just well-off folks who get to enjoy music with their turkey this holiday.”

Fallon will visit five sites on Thursday, performing on his guitar and accordion. His schedule is as follows:

Catholic Worker House
7th and Indiana
9:30 am

Chucks Restaurant
3610 Sixth Ave
10:30

St. Josephs Church
3300 Easton Blvd
11:30

Elim Christian Fellowship
525 E. 9th St
1:30

True Bible Baptist Church
4101 Amherst St
2:30

No word on if Ed Fallon has actually learned "Karma Police" or if he'll be dedicating it to Chet Culver, but that's one he ought to consider arranging for accordion.

"Horseshit Edition"

Don't miss Ron Maly's blog, which covers Iowa sports, especially his recent post featuring an email from George Wine entitled Horseshit Edition.

No Shortage Of Work For Tradesmen In Iowa

Via the Associated Press:

There's no shortage of work for Mike Kirby, a 21-year-old apprentice electrician in Iowa who's lately been on the job 10 hours a day, seven days a week.

He and others in the traditional trades are in great demand throughout the country, with many trades groups and employers hotly recruiting high school students to try and fill the growing need for everything from plumbers to bricklayers and drywallers.

Yet despite the opportunities, the jobs are proving a tough sell - not only to young people but to their parents and school counselors, who don't always see the trades as a desirable option.

"That's the way it's preached: 'If you don't go to college, you can't do anything.' But obviously that's not true," says Kirby, who'll finish his apprenticeship with Shaw Electric in Davenport, Iowa, next year.

He expects to make $18 an hour once he finishes and hopes that will increase to as much as $25 an hour in the years to come.

Officials at organizations that represent the construction trades say national age-specific statistics aren't available. But they note U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the industry will need to add 100,000 jobs a year each year through 2012, while also filling an additional 90,000 openings annually for positions vacated by retiring baby boomers and those leaving the industry for other reasons.

Somebody ought to point this out to the whiny undergradates at Grinnell and the University of Iowa who are pursuing worthless degrees.

Oh well, somebody's got to serve up the coffee that the union electricians drink!

Tracey Dyess Statement

This is so sad. From Radio Iowa:

Dyess pleaded guilty to a charge of arson, two counts of attempted murder, and two charges of voluntary manslaughter, which had been reduced from two original charges of first-degree murder. In the courtroom today (Tuesday), Dyess explained to the judge she set the fire because she was afraid of what Street might do later that night. "I set the fire because I knew I was going to left alone with Brian, I knew what was going to happen." The judge asked her to be more clear, and after saying her mother was preparing to leave the house and she'd be alone with her stepfather, Dyess told the judge, "I knew he was going to force himself on me."

Before the sentencing, the judge gave the teen an opportunity to make a statement. Dyess told him she felt remorse for the loss of her siblings. Dyess says "I miss Kaleb and Jessica and I think about 'em every day, and I wish I could go back and take it all back." Afterward, the judge sentenced Dyess to 45-years in prison at the Iowa Medical Classification Center in Oakdale, where she will undergo rehabilitation. The teen could be released in about 22 and a-half years if she meets the terms of her treatment.

This is a travesty.

Tracey Dyess had been sexually abused by three different men that her mother knew since she was four years old. Dyess's mother was also a prostitute and practiced polyandry. Can you imagine how fucked up you'd be if you had to grow up amongst that?

While we agree that Dyess should serve time for the deaths of her siblings, we think a 45 year sentence is ridiculous considering the circumstances.


Related: Beyond Sad

Will Illinois To Adopt Iowa's Sex Offender Residency Law?

From the Bloomington Pantagraph:

Iowa prohibits sex offenders whose victims were minors from living within 2,000 feet of schools and daycare facilities. The law was upheld in a federal appellate court this summer, allowing it to take effect after three years of legal battles. Illinois has a similar law, but the exclusion zones extend only 500 feet.

Some Iowa cities have passed even more restrictive rules. Des Moines put exclusion zones around parks, recreational trails, public swimming pools and libraries. Combined with the state law, the restrictions essentially make the entire city off limits.

No one wants to see displaced sex offenders moving to Illinois -- no one in Illinois, anyway.

But carrying residency restrictions to draconian limits is counter-productive.

At best, it shifts a potential problem from one area to another.

But it also discourages offenders from complying with registration rules, letting them drop off the radar and making enforcement more difficult.

People also could get a false sense of security from tough residency restrictions, thinking it makes their neighborhood "safe." Just because a law says convicted sex offenders can't live in a particular area, that doesn't mean all ex-offenders are obeying the law.

Illinois and Iowa are among at least 14 states that place restrictions on some categories of sex offenders. But there is speculation that could grow with the federal appellate ruling upholding Iowa's law. Nebraska is among those considering such a law, as Nebraska towns near Iowa's border begin passing their own laws.

No mention in this piece about how the Iowa Civil Liberties Union has appealed Iowa's arbitrary law at the Supreme Court level, but it is interesting to see what neighboring states are considering.

If the SCOTUS upholds Iowa's weird law, what's to stop lawmakers and city councils and county boards all over the country from banning all ex-criminals from living within 2000 feet of a school or daycare center or a park?

Aren't murderers, drunk drivers who've killed, armed robbers, and wife beaters just as bad as sex offenders?

Slippery slope, indeed.

Kossacks Love Culver?

You gotta love how dumb Kos and the Kossacks are, especially in this post and comment thread concerning Culver vs Nussle. Culver is a frontrunner? That's a laugh. You're a clueless dumbass, Markos.

Check out how the commenters diss Fallon and especially Blouin. No mention of Culver's love for Dirty Knappy or his Kent Dorfman-esque stature in Iowa politics. What a bunch of clowns.

The only positive thing we can say about the comment thread is that they've got Nussle down perfectly.

Little Rod, Man

Last week we mentioned that ex-janitor Dennis Rodman has signed to play two games in May 2006 with the Cedar Valley Jaguars in Waterloo.

Now, via Fleshbot, comes word that somebody has a couple of pics of Rodman's peckr on Flickr. While it's NSFW, it's not that big of a deal.

That $200 Will Break Ya In Grinnell

From the Grinnell College Scarlet and Black:

With an economic recession, and subsequent losses in state revenue, Iowa has cut financial aid programs, such as the Iowa Tuition Grant (ITG), for the past few years. ITG provides Iowa residents who go to college in-state with a maximum grant of $3,900 if they demonstrate financial need. Currently, over 50 Grinnell students receive a combined total of over $204,000 from the program...

If tuition does rise again, students will have a difficult time getting financial help from the federal government. Nearly one-third of all American students receive need-based federal Pell grants, which offer a maximum reward of $4,050. From 1995-2001, this cap rose by 75 percent. Since then, it has remained stagnant.

Last week, Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin voted to raise the cap by $200, but a slim majority of Republicans, including Iowa Sen. Charles Grassley, defeated the proposal. The news made few headlines, but the voice of students and parents was visibly absent from the whole process.

If we have a responsibility to speak out on issues of social justice, peace and equality, then we also have an obligation to take a stand on this issue. Tuition hikes and aid cuts strike very close to home, and the government isn’t going to take steps to improve the situation unless we, the people who are affected by current policies, make ourselves heard.

We have to laugh at this editorial.

Grinnell is one of the most expensive private colleges in Iowa. 2005-2006 expenses for undergraduate tuition and room/board are $34,814.

$200 shouldn't matter to somebody getting an education that costs more money over four years than buying a tricked-out 2005 Mercedes-Benz G-Wagon.

This is the same college that holds a nearly $1.3 billion endowment, which is the equivalent of about $835,000 for every undergraduate student enrolled there this year.

Good luck paying your student loans, suckers.

Cowl Lamps In Spencer

From Random (second item under Fresh Caselaw), if you're driving through Spencer and your cowl lamp is out, you better have a cowl lamp.

Actually, it's a bit deeper than that. Very fascinating!

Smoking Surcharge

Updated below:

This was in the Des Moines Register on Sunday, and it appears in the Waterloo Courier today:

Some companies have started charging smoking employees a monthly surcharge, saying smokers cost them more money in medical costs.

Northwest Airlines, Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. and Gannett Inc., the publisher of The Des Moines Register, are among those to initiate the charges.

Gannett, which has 1,150 employees in Iowa, will add a $50 monthly surcharge starting in January for smokers who use its insurance plans.

Companies say federal government studies show that a smoker costs an employer $5,606 extra per year because of higher medical expenses and absenteeism.

Er, shouldn't companies be charging a $500 a month surcharge against smokers?

There's more:

"What about people who eat 15 Hershey bars a day? Are you going to go after them?" asked Skip Lowe of West Des Moines benefits consulting firm Bernie Lowe Associates Inc.

Nobody eats 15 Hershey bars a day, and if they do you can easily spot them.


Update: Research recently published in the British Medical Journal suggested that a daily meal of seven ingredients, which included 100g dark chocolate (along with fish, fruit, vegetables, almonds, garlic and 150ml wine) could cut the risk of coronary heart disease by a massive 76%. The scientists predicted this could increase average life expectancy by six and a half years for men and five years for women.

Dick Haws Gets Mugged

Here's something you rarely see in column by a bed-wetting liberal columnist: Honesty in a followup story. This is from the Ames Tribune and is by Dick Haws:

This is one of those "Whatever happened to ... ?" kind of columns.

It has been almost one year to the day since I wrote a column about a 32-year-old Story County woman who had just been released from the women's prison at Mitchellville after serving several years on bad check charges. I gave her the name of Lauri to protect her identity.

That first column told about how hopeless her situation was. She had no education, no training, no job experience, no family, no friends; she also was an alcoholic and suffered epileptic seizures. But there she was, being dropped off at the emergency shelter on South Kellogg Avenue, with all of $50 in her pocket, a gift from the state of Iowa for her to use to get her life in order.

This is an update on what has happened to Lauri in the past 12 months. I wish it were a happy story.

Lauri's first weeks out of prison began optimistically enough. She found housing in a pleasant, two-bedroom apartment, at $350 a month, in north Ames. And she found a job in fast food. She wasn't being paid much above the minimum wage, but I told her that if she were careful, she could make it. After reading that first column about Lauri, several people in Ames and Des Moines stepped forward with offers of help. One promised her a rental subsidy of $100 a month for an entire year; another gave money for new clothes; and numerous others contributed more clothes and dishes and pots and pans and kitchen utensils and a table and chairs and a television set and a bed and bedding and grocery bags full of food and on and on.

She needed everything and she got everything. Somebody even gave her Christmas lights. It took my younger daughter, her boyfriend and me three trips in a loaned pick-up truck and several more trips in a car to get it all delivered to her new apartment. She gave us hugs and there were tears in her eyes when we left.

She also took in a roommate, a good move I thought because the roommate would be able to pay half the rent. And she also was able to arrange free medical care and prescription medicine for her seizures. She also made plans to attend AA meetings. Life looked good, I thought.

But I was easily deceived. On an early visit to her apartment, I saw a bottle of vodka in her refrigerator and asked her about it. She said it belonged to her new boyfriend, who also soon became a problem. And the roommate, Lauri decided, also was a problem and soon was evicted. And after only about two weeks at her fast food job, Lauri was fired - or quit, I wasn't quite sure which. And she didn't seem all that interested in finding another job. Instead, she spent her time seeking out churches for handouts and socializing with her newfound friends, many of who, I quickly learned, shared a common criminal background.

An even newer boyfriend soon moved in, replacing the new boyfriend. But finally Lauri got another job - at another fast food restaurant, but she was fired again after only about another two weeks, and after another several month hiatus, she got another job, this time at a grocery store, but again, she only lasted about another two weeks. Her life was flying out of control.

I would get drunken telephone calls from her. She'd tell me she had been raped or that she had suffered a seizure or that she was pregnant with twins or that she had delivered the twins. The stories went on and on and on.

I don't even know exactly how it all ended. I have never gone to the trouble to find out, but her last call came from the Story County Jail about three months ago. Lauri told me she was headed back to prison and asked me to pick up her civilian clothes. I don't know how long she'll be gone this time. I don't know that it makes much difference. I've come to accept that Lauri's not capable of making it on the outside.

She says she has been in an institution since she was 11 - or 14, I don't remember which. Institutions are all she knows. I actually think prison is a good place for her right now. There, she'll stay away from alcohol, she'll get room and board and her medications, she won't have to worry much about getting fired and she will be more likely to stay out of trouble. But at some point, she'll complete her sentence again; she'll be released again; and I worry that the cycle will repeat itself again. And she's only 32.

I don't know how many cycles she's got left in her.

Actually, it is a happy story.

The woman is alive. She didn't fall in with the usual kind of rough characters that abuse, rape, or murder women.

The woman is being cared for by the State in a protected environment. Like Haws says, there she can stay off alcohol and on her meds.

And the woman didn't produce any children during her time out of prison. It's clear that "Lauri" was making up stuff. Let's hope she's kept under custody until she hits menopause. What a cruel life that children produced by such a person would have to endure.

Moving Forward And Lurching Onto The Sidewalk

We almost forgot to mention that Mary Ann Dilla, the Ames School Board member who was busted in January for drunk driving after she and her car were discovered in the snow and on a sidewalk while she driving to a school board meeting, has finally resigned her role as President of the Board.


Background: Iowa Still Soft On School Board Presidents Who Drive Drunk

Thanksgiving = Genocide: One Year Later

We got this email today:

Hi there, editor of state 29,

Do you have any argument against the notion that Thanksgiving is basically the celebration of a genocide that as much as possible the descendants of European immigrants ignore or try not to think about? Or does it suffice for you just to mock people with unpopular beliefs that are different from your own, notably in being based on facts instead of mythology and brainwashing?

Cheers
Paul

Somebody's clearly baiting us.

You know how we know?

If this had been written by a person who truly believed that Thanksgiving = Genocide it would be full of misspelled words, improper grammar, and numerous threats.

And the only people who use the phrase "Cheers" when ending an email are British or Euro-wannabe poseurs.

Nice try, but you're not pulling anybody's leg today.


Related: The Jesse Villalobotomy Insurgency

That's What We Really Mean: Rewriting The Des Moines Register's Editorials

A rewrite of today's editorial in the Des Moines Register:

President Bush's low ratings in the polls might be dismissed as a temporary expression by a fickle public is the result of an ongoing campaign by the Associated Press, Knight-Ridder, Reuters, and the Democratic Party to report only bad news in Iraq except it isn't just Americans' approval Bush has lost, it's their trust when soldiers die, then newspapers can run exploitative stories about the families of the dead infidels soldiers, especially if the soldier has a mentally deranged relative who is anti-war.

Various polls show a majority of people have concluded the president is not honest and trustworthy even though there's no proof of it other than what a bunch of lying Democrats and waffling "moderates" seem to think, which is never fact-checked by newspaper reporters, and overwhelming numbers believe he deliberately misled the nation into the invasion of Iraq despite the lack of evidence thereof, and nevermind what Bill Clinton and Ted Kennedy said back in 1998 or even 2002.

Once trust is lost, it's very difficult to win back. And we'd know something about that since our circulation declines year after year after year.

Bush must begin anew. He must act as if today is the first day of his second term Democrats have majority power. He should accept the resignations of just about everybody from his old team and assemble a new Cabinet and set of advisers from Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton's administrations. In particular, he should replace Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with Sean Penn and relegate Vice President Dick Cheney to the traditional place of vice presidents — out of the loop pregnant, barefoot, lesbian, and in the kitchen. Those two are most closely identified with the mistakes in Iraq., but certainly not old Ba'athists, Islamofascist troublemakers from other countries, or even Kofi Annan.

Bush should also replace political adviser Karl Rove with Bob Shrum, whether or not he Rove was involved in leaking a CIA agent's name because Karl Rove has to be guilty of something and it's too bad we can't have a taxpayer-financed witch hunt in order to "get" him. Bush will never run for office again. He doesn't need a political adviser. He needs advice on how to govern and Lord, Allah, Gaia knows, we've been dishing out all sorts of advice for the past several years but Chimpy McBushitler is too dumb to listen, despite his monkey ears.

In assembling a new team of all Democrats, the president should reach out beyond his conservative base to draw in moderate Republicans, those grandstanding camera hogs who stand for nothing except pork and re-election and perhaps even some Democrats Socialists. It's time for him to become president of all the people, not just his base, because even whiny, temper tantrum-throwing, girlyman adults need representation too.

A change in personnel alone won't restore public trust. The president must present a credible plan for ending the U.S. occupation of Iraq, resign and force all his Christian Taliban supporters to drink cyanide-laced purple Kool-Aid so they'll all die sooner rather than later. That's what we really mean.

Fresh Fruit For Rotting Credit Cards

The Waterloo Courier has a story about how a single elementary school in Cedar Falls obtained an $18,000 Federal grant to serve fresh fruits and vegetables to the kids as snacks. The grant has also been approved for the next school year.

Why does the Federal charge card have to be used to provide kids healthy snacks at schools? Isn't this the responsibility of the local school district to fund and provide such things?

Iowa Slottery Infiltrating Everywhere

From the Quad City Times:

Ask folks at the Iowa Lottery and they’ll insist: Those machines popping up all over the Iowa Quad-Cities are not slot machines. Sure, they look like slots: Video screens show spinning wheels of lucky 7s and bars. Buttons allow multiple bets up to $1.35 on each spin. The beeps and blips sound just like a casino.

But they’re not slots, said Mary Neubauer, the lottery’s vice president of external relations. It is Touchplay, just “another lottery instant game,” she said.

That’s a whopper that won’t pass muster anywhere outside the lottery office.

Hundreds of slot machines are taking bets daily at 87 Scott County locations: taverns, gas stations, convenience stores. Statewide, the state of Iowa operates 3,700 slot machines. And many, many more are on the way.

In 2004, when Touchplay went statewide, the lottery reported about $6.4 million in revenue from the devices we’ll politely dub slottery machines. This year, Neubauer expects it will net $30 million, or about half of what all other lottery games combined generate for the state...

To Quad-City problem gamblers, the differences are enormous and troubling. Casinos operate slots in a regulated environment with state police agents on board. Casinos prohibit entry to problem gamblers who have asked to be barred. Casinos have hired staff to intervene with intoxicated players. Casinos have staff required to check age IDs.

Four convenience stores we visited had signs stating age restrictions for playing lottery slots. A single busy clerk in each store rang up gas and other purchases. Some didn’t have a clear view of the slot machines.

To Quad-City businesses, the differences are staggering. Convenience stores are giving up prime space for these machines that can generate more income than the pop, coffee and candy sold only inches away. One Davenport store hung “slot machine” banners outside the store, advertising the new games using the term forbidden by the lottery. Iowa Lottery officials never would have known unless alerted. In this case, they were alerted by Mary Ellen Chamberlin, director of the RDA, who spotted the signs while riding with Nancy Donovan, director of the Isle of Capri’s Iowa operations. We can’t assume they’ll be available to handle all enforcement.

It is time to declare war on Iowa's politicians, Ed Stanek at the Iowa Lottery, and any merchant who allows these "slottery" machines in public, especially where people under the age of 21 can frequent such as conveience stores. This shit's gotta stop.

Iowa was the first in the US to operate these slot machines slot machines in bars as a supposed replacement for pull-tabs. This, of course, was a big lie so that Ed Stanek and Iowa's politicians could further spread gambling into every nook and cranny throughout Iowa.

Chet Culver Can't Stop Being A Dumbass

Our favorite legacy, Kent Dorfman Chet Culver, shows how much of Dirty Knappy's brown stuff is spread across his nose in this Des Moines Register piece:

Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for governor, called land developer Bill Knapp an "honorable man" and "a lifelong friend" Friday.

Knapp, who is part of Culver's campaign, is at the center of controversial land transactions with the state transportation department and a public charity...

"Bill Knapp is critically important. He is the co-chair of my campaign," Culver said. "He will help me get elected governor."

Knapp is a prolific contributor to Democrats, including Culver.

Last December, for example, Knapp gave Culver's campaign committee $25,000 — 16 percent of what Culver received in all of 2004, according to state records.

Knapp "has done incredible things for the Democratic Party," Culver said. "He has helped Governor Vilsack, Senator Harkin, my father (former U.S. Sen. John Culver), Congressman Leonard Boswell and, most importantly, he has done great things for the state of Iowa."

So what are you saying, Flounder?

Are you saying it's OK that Bill Knapp made over $100,000 an acre on land purchased with insider information?

Are you saying it's OK that Knapp engineered the sale of the land because of his connections?

Are you saying it's OK that Democrats, as long as they're doing good things for other Democrats, can do whatever the fuck they want without input from the public?

Are you saying it's OK that the deal was done in a back room without any concern for cost to the taxpayers or proximity to most Polk County residents?

It's pretty clear that Chet Culver, if he's elected Governor, will be one of the filthiest, scandal-ridden douchebags ever to hold public office in Iowa. Luckily, the odds on Bill Knapp buying Culver securing the nomination grow fainter each day.

Ed Fallon gets the last word in today's story in the DMR:

State Rep. Ed Fallon, who also is seeking the Democratic nomination for governor, called earlier this week for the state attorney general to investigate the matter.

Knapp's role in Culver's fundraising has become a campaign issue, Fallon said.

"Knapp is really, really good at getting his way, and he throws around a lot of money in order to do it," Fallon said.

Ed Fallon continues to stand up against the fat cats and the dirty dogs, even within his own party. Our unabashed support of Fallon's candidacy for Governor of Iowa continues.


Update: Drew Miller has a blog entry on this story.

A few days ago The Political Forecast had an interesting story about the Culver/Knapp connection, but that blog has a "Democrats can do no wrong" sycophantic attitude that makes us want to barf.


Related: Dirty Bill Knapp and More Dirty Bill Knapp and Martha Stewart Went To Prison For Far Less

Culver and Vilsack: SPEND SPEND SPEND

From the Des Moines Register:

Iowa Secretary of State Chet Culver, who is seeking the Democratic Party nomination for governor, today called for a slew of additional spending on state programs ranging from health care for more children to higher teachers salaries to public safety.

Culver declined to provide a plan for paying for much of the ideas but hinted that money could be saved in state government by running more efficiently by using technology.

That Chet Culver is a frickin genius.

Culver probably wants the State of Iowa to start using computers. Maybe we can even manufacture them in Iowa!!! Perhaps he ought to give China a call to see if they'll relocate some of their factories here.

As for Vilsack:

Gov. Tom Vilsack called Friday for the creation of a $50 million fund to pay for biotechnology and advanced manufacturing research at the state’s three universities.

‘‘This is designed to basically send a message’’ to those industries, the governor said.

He proposed using money generated by bonds that were backed by the state’s share of the multistate tobacco settlement.

Yep, Vilsack is sending a message to companies that Iowa's taxpayers, especially money meant to pay for the health care costs of smokers and ex-smokers, will be used as corporate welfare.

Excommunicate Deacon Blouin?

Via Drew Miller's blog, we learn that Deacon Blouin says he won't perform any abortions if he's elected the Governor of Iowa, or something like that.

From the Des Moines Register:

Democrat Mike Blouin, known for his anti-abortion views, told The Associated Press that if he is elected governor, he will not support any new restrictions on abortion...

"Regardless of the U.S. Supreme Court's future actions regarding Roe v. Wade, I would not sign any legislation to further restrict or expand access to abortion in Iowa," said Blouin, the state's former economic development director and a former congressman from eastern Iowa.

While Blouin said his beliefs are "at the very heart of who I am as a person, I also understand that our laws must be acceptable to and enforceable within society..."

Blouin said he has been consistent on the issue.

"As a Democrat and a Catholic, my position on this issue has been consistent throughout my life in public service," he said.

This is the biggest "Who Gives A Flying Fuck?" issue of the campaign. The media in Iowa and the Democrats might as well be debating whether Weebles wobble or if they really can fall down.

If you really wanted to up the ante, how about giving Marc Balestrieri a call? He's the Roman Catholic canon lawyer from Los Angeles who sued John Kerry for heresy in ecclesiastical court. That would be a fun sideshow.

Nevermind issues all like taxpayer-financed corporate welfare, whether Iowa will pass any anti-Kelo legislation, the arbitrary sex offender residency law, the ongoing saga of the Rainforest project, and a million other important issues. Let's talk about hoovering cells out of a woman's uterus instead.

What will be interesting to see is if Deacon Blouin gets the Democratic nomination (You're f'in crazy, everybody knows Ed Fallon is going to get it. - Ed.), will fellow faux-Catholic and Democrat Tom Harkin endorse him? Remember, this is the same Tom Harkin who has been cheerleading a possible filibuster of SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito, a man whose previous pro-life statements from 20 years ago have been discussed widely in the media. We have a good idea what Senator Hypocrite would do if faced with such a dilemma.

Ten Foot Distance, Give Or Take A Few Inches

From the Ames Tribune:

An ordinance change that would keep erotic dancers 10 feet away from customers received the blessing of the Ames Planning and Zoning Commission Wednesday.

The commission voted unanimously to approve the amendment during its 35-minute meeting. In order for the change to go into effect, the City Council will need to give its approval.

The proposed change creates a definition for "adult cabarets." Besides the 10-foot buffer, areas where customers are allowed must be clearly visible and lighting must be adequate.

What's next in anti-sex Ames? Banning co-ed swimming? Almost:

City Attorney John Klaus said the goal of the change is to prevent problems that could occur between dancers and customers.

"It's been found that the attraction to these places is not so much the dancing as it is the opportunity to get very close and personal with the entertainers," Klaus said. "That has a set of potential risks, when the entertainer is scantily clad and in a secluded part of the establishment."

Klaus was asked by the City Council to draft an ordinance change after Dangerous Curves, 111 Fifth St., applied for and was granted a liquor license. Owners of the business, which features bikini-clad dancers, wanted to expand to the lower level of 122 Welch Ave.

Mr Klaus, you are confusing a place similar to Hooters with something like Woody's or Daisy Dukes. Big difference. Trust us. We'd know.

Here's more:

At Wednesday's meeting, psychologist Suzanne Zilber was the only member of the public to speak. She said sex education falls short in raising awareness to the potential risks of businesses like Dangerous Curves.

"Our young people are being educated through pornography, which teaches them that rape is sexy and rape is fun," Zilber said.

There's nothing like opening up the floor to some extremist, sex-hating Feminasty so she can spew her Dworkin-like drivel.

How about somebody starting a club featuring hot hunks walking around in short shorts as entertainment for the ladies? It's only fair.

Ban Everybody

Jim Pollock in the Des Moines Business Record:

Are there any paroled murderers living in this town? I don’t much care for that idea, either. Let’s slap a 2,000-foot rule on them while we’re at it -- a bit farther if they used a rifle.

It would also be a good thing if everybody who ever ran a financial scam had to stay 2,000 feet away from my wallet...

I would like to hear that the government had decided to enforce a 2,000-foot barrier between me and everybody who ever committed a strong-arm robbery or physical assault, and I wouldn’t mind a modest cushion – 1,500 feet, say – between my delicate sensibilities and everyone who gets on my nerves.

Out where the real danger is, on the highways and possibly the byways, 2,000 feet might not be thinking big enough. Let’s add 640 feet and make it a full half-mile between me – or any member of my family – and anyone who likes to chat on their cell phone. I’ll take a mile against anyone who has had more than one beer or who falls asleep easily.

...a more cost-effective approach would be to just go ahead and ban from the state of Iowa everybody who has ever done something reprehensible. That seems to be the direction we’re headed; if the bad guys can’t live in Des Moines, Polk County has to act, then the adjacent counties, and so forth.

Don’t worry, they’ll find someplace where they can fit in. I mean, have you taken a good look at some of these neighboring states?

Great stuff.

Related: Charlotte's Restaurant and The Sex Offender Lobby

More Proof The Des Moines Register Is Run By Morons

This editorial in the Des Moines Register today had us laughing heartily:

Let's settle who's lying about Iraq
By Register Editorial Board

President Bush has recently gone on the attack, accusing those who say he lied to justify the invasion of Iraq of being liars themselves.

There's an obvious way to settle the dispute: Appoint an independent commission to investigate the pre-war use or misuse of intelligence by the Bush administration. It should have been done long ago.

As the president points out, two studies already have concluded that the administration did not pressure intelligence agents to change their findings to justify the war. Both investigations, however, purposely stopped short of further inquiring whether the Bush administration misused, exaggerated or selectively edited the intelligence it presented to the public and Congress to bolster the case for war.

Beyond the possible misuse of intelligence, a commission should investigate why the administration consistently and repeatedly implied a link between Iraq and the 9/11 attacks, even though the available intelligence indicated no such link existed. This doesn't appear to be a misuse of intelligence but rather a complete disregard for it.

What the hell do you people do all day long at 715 Locust? Sit around and have your "conservative" friends email you about what's on the Drudge Report?

For starters, how about reading this article by Stephen Hayes from 2003?

Or how about reading this exchange between Bill Moyers and Hitchens in 2002:

MOYERS: But the issue to me is that if it goes wrong, the president, his cabinet, they'll lose the election, and history will be hard on them. The people in Iraq will suffer and be in chaos or dead if it goes badly.

We can advocate war, and then walk on, move on to our next cause, to our next story. That's... Maybe it's a distinction that doesn't hit home with you. But it makes me more reluctant than when I was in government, to think that intellectuals and journalists should be urging people to go to war.

HITCHENS I think the same obligation falls on those who are opposed to intervention, to say, "well do they have any reason to think that the threat from an aggressive, neurotic, sadistic totalitarian dictatorship will not eventually?"

What will it be like if Mr. Hussein gets hold of deterrent quality weapons of genocide? I think I have a very good idea of what life would be like.

He would be able to do, for example, if he wanted to, sort of get attention, would be, say, to reoccupy Kuwait, or perhaps a part of Saudi Arabia, and say, "If you try and push me out, I can irradiate these oil fields. I can poison them for generations." I mean, he would put the world economy into a slump and kill millions of people in doing so.

We know not just from defectors from Iraq, of whom there've been many, some of them known to me, but from people still within his administration who've been interviewed, that he has said to his cabinet... His cabinet. That his big mistake was to invade Kuwait before he got the nuclear weapon.

We know that he was very near to a weapon before then.

MOYERS: We've seen that in the 12,000 pages.

HITCHENS Why does he say that it would have been better to have a nuclear weapon before I invaded Kuwait? For obvious reasons.

Because it would mean he could deter... He could talk to us as the North Koreans now can. I've been there, too.

Saying that they can threaten such terrifying destruction, that they have to be talked to in a conciliatory tone of voice.

And a lot of the anti-war calculus is based on the idea that he understands deterrence, he understands self preservation, he can be deterred and contained. I don't believe it. I think his regime has become demented.

MOYERS: Has there been any experience in your lifetime, except for the defeat of Germany and Japan, where after a war like this, we have been able... Or a democratic experience has emerged from that new reality?

HITCHENS Well, I think Afghanistan at the moment is a very good case in point.

MOYERS: Ah, but they're...

HITCHENS The... Yes, but there's case for the invasion of... I don't even think it was an invasion. The case for the intervention in Afghanistan wasn't any better to begin with than a self-defense one.

By removing a theocratic dictatorship of the most cruel and retrograde kind, the... For one thing, the population of Afghanistan has gone up by a million and a half, because refugees have been able to come home. And life of everybody is better, especially for the female 50 percent.

And don't forget Saddam's defiance of all those UN Security Council resolutions.

You idiots at the Des Moines Register couldn't find your ass with both hands, literally and figuratively.


Update: Shut up, ya pretty boy liar.

"Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center"

Yeah, yeah, yeah, everybody saw that Tom Harkin was going to have some building in Atlanta named after him on Drudge. Here's the followup in the DMR by Jane Norman:

A building at the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta would have been named for Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa in a bill that failed to gain House approval Thursday.

Harkin is the top Democrat on the subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee that doles out money for the centers, along with other human services spending.

Under an amendment approved in the Senate, the centers' communications building would become the "Thomas R. Harkin Global Communications Center."

The proposal was ridiculed immediately after the House vote on the conservative Drudge Report Web site as an example of lawmakers' "egos completely out of control."

The amendment was offered by Sen. Daniel Inouye, D-Hawaii.

Allison Dobson, a spokeswoman for Harkin, said that Harkin did not request that the building be named for him, though he was in the majority of an October 94-3 vote in favor of the bill containing the language.

"He's very flattered and very honored to have one of his colleagues recognize him," Dobson said.

Inouye also designated another building at the centers to be named for the chairman of the subcommittee, Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

It would become the "Arlen Specter Headquarters and Emergency Operations Center."

It always amuses us to no end to see politicians trying to name shit after themselves, or getting other politicians to do it for them while pleading complete ignorance when they get caught.

Every time we pass the Neal Smith National Wildlife Refuge sign on I-80 we want to take a paintball gun to the part of the sign that says "Neal Smith" on it.

Dennis Rodman To Play Basketball In Waterloo

From Radio Iowa:

Waterloo's professional basketball team has landed a familiar face. Former NBA bad boy Dennis Rodman has signed a two-game contract with the Cedar Valley Jaguars of the International Basketball League. Rodman won five championships in his 14-year NBA career and is expected to play in Waterloo May 19th and 20th. League officials admit Rodman's signing is a promotion to draw interest to the league.

What a great way to see The Worm, someone who is now essentially an old, hair-dyed, tattooed, pierced, cross-dressing, Madonna-squiring, Carmen Electra-marrying, former pro basketball player and former airport janitor.

We'll see you there in a wedding dress.

Charlotte's Restaurant

A letter to the Quad City Times, by Marty Jahn, the Mayor of Charlotte, IA:

“Not in my backyard!” This is what we always see in the news or whenever someone wants to site a new landfill waste facility, or hog confinement facility. Now we want to force the sex offenders out and put them in “our backyard.” Well we don’t want them either.

By forcing the residency restrictions or the sex offenders law in the State of Iowa, these larger towns have forced sex offenders out into the rural towns and areas.

We are passing similar laws aimed at curbing this as well. Unfortunately the City of Charlotte is forced to do the same and create a residency law similar to the state’s and bigger city laws. Our law has been expanded to include parks, public buildings and bus stops, as we don’t have a school library or daycare facility in our town.

This should have been looked at when the law was being drafted, but was not because it didn’t affect those writing the law. Dianna Danielson was quoted in the Quad-City Times on Oct. 30 as saying “restrictions aren’t necessarily helpful for safety,” I partially agree with this but I also know what public perception is and that is that the people living in these small communities do not want sex offenders living next door to their small children and grandchildren. While the facts state that most offenses occur from a family member or family acquaintance, in a small town this pretty much affects everyone in town. I know that people will read this and have their own opinions for or against my argument, but I think that it is time to look into this further because it isn’t getting any better.

Mayor Jahn seems to be in agreement with Lance Horbach or even Ed Fallon about how ridiculous and arbitrary Iowa's sex offender residency law is.

But you've got to ask public officials, who succumb to drafting additional ordinances to "protect" their communities before the SCOTUS strikes down these sorts of laws with, the following questions:

How about people convicted of murder, manslaughter, or involuntary manslaughter?

We bet that nobody wants these people, once released from prison, living next door to them.

How about people convicted of multiple offenses of drunk driving, burglary, or armed robbery?

You want them living in your town after they're released from prison, completed their probation, and paid their restitution?

What about wife beaters, mother rapers, and father rapers?

Yeah, what about father rapers?

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the Alice's Restaurant Massacre, with full orchestration and five part harmony and stuff like that and all the phenome... - and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, did you ever go to court?"

And I proceeded to tell him the story of the twenty seven eight-by-ten colour glossy pictures with the circles and arrows and the paragraph on the back of each one, and he stopped me right there and said, "Kid, I want you to go and sit down on that bench that says Group W .... NOW kid!!"

And I, I walked over to the, to the bench there, and there is, Group W's where they put you if you may not be moral enough to join the army after committing your special crime, and there was all kinds of mean nasty ugly looking people on the bench there. Mother rapers. Father stabbers. Father rapers! Father rapers sitting right there on the bench next to me! And they was mean and nasty and ugly and horrible crime-type guys sitting on the bench next to me. And the meanest, ugliest, nastiest one, the meanest father raper of them all, was coming over to me and he was mean 'n' ugly 'n' nasty 'n' horrible and all kind of things and he sat down next to me and said, "Kid, whad'ya get?" I said, "I didn't get nothing, I had to pay $50 and pick up the garbage." He said, "What were you arrested for, kid?" And I said, "Littering." And they all moved away from me on the bench there, and the hairy eyeball and all kinds of mean nasty things, till I said, "And creating a nuisance." And they all came back, shook my hand, and we had a great time on the bench, talkin about crime, mother stabbing, father raping, all kinds of groovy things that we was talking about on the bench. And everything was fine, we was smoking cigarettes and all kinds of things, until the Sargeant came over, had some paper in his hand, held it up and said.

"Kids, this-piece-of-paper's-got 47-words-37 sentences 58-words we-wanna- know details-of-the crime-time-of-the-crime and any-other-kind- of-thing-
you-gotta say-pertaining to-and-about-the-crime I-want-to-know arresting officer's name-and any-other kind-of thing-you-gotta say", and talked for forty-five minutes and nobody understood a word that he said, but we had fun filling out the forms and playing with the pencils on the bench there, and I filled out the massacre with the four part harmony, and wrote it down there, just like it was, and everything was fine and I put down the pencil, and I turned over the piece of paper, and there, there on the other side, in the middle of the other side, away from everything else on the other side, in parentheses, capital letters, quotated, read the following words:

("KID, HAVE YOU REHABILITATED YOURSELF?")

I went over to the sargent, said, "Sargeant, you got a lot a damn gall to ask me if I've rehabilitated myself, I mean, I mean, I mean that just, I'm sittin' here on the bench, I mean I'm sittin here on the Group W bench 'cause you want to know if I'm moral enough join the army, burn women, kids, houses and villages after bein' a litterbug." He looked at me and said, "Kid, we don't like your kind, and we're gonna send you fingerprints off to Washington."

And friends, somewhere in Washington enshrined in some little folder, is a study in black and white of my fingerprints. And the only reason I'm singing you this song now is cause you may know somebody in a similar situation, or you may be in a similar situation, and if you're in a situation like that there's only one thing you can do and that's walk into the shrink wherever you are ,just walk in say "Shrink, You can get anything you want, at Alice's restaurant.". And walk out. You know, if one person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and they won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony, they may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them. And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. They may think it's an organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant and walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

And that's what it is , the Alice's Restaurant Anti-Massacre Movement, and all you got to do to join is sing it the next time it come's around on the guitar.

With feeling. So we'll wait for it to come around on the guitar, here and sing it when it does. Here it comes.

You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant
Walk right in it's around the back
Just a half a mile from the railroad track
You can get anything you want, at Alice's Restaurant

Everybody seems to have a problem with sex offenders living less than 2000 feet away from a school, but most Democrats seem to be in favor of letting sex offenders walk right into a polling place located in a school on Election Day and cast a ballot.

Chuck Grassley Is A Robot

From the Waterloo Courier:

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Wednesday that his party is not governing effectively, which he fears will lead to losses at the ballot box next year.

"A lot of people want to say Republicans are having problems because of stands we take on specific issues. I've seen polls where that's not the reason. The reason is we're not governing," he said in a conference call with reporters.

When you spend your days lining the pockets of Republican con-artists like David Oman with the taxpayer's charge card, no wonder people get pissed off at you.

All D-Minuses

The State Board of Education approved an "All D-Minus" requirement for jocks participating in high school athletics. Story in the Waterloo Courier.


Related: "All D minuses and two F's is not a high standard by any stretch"

Maharishis To Eliminate Poverty. Cost: $100 Billion Dollars

From i-Newswire.com:

Maharishi Vedic City’s City Council unanimously passed a resolution today to establish permanent world peace through the eradication of global poverty. The City Council pledged to work with other governments, non-profit organizations, and large banks around the world to establish agricultural projects on 250 million acres of unused agricultural land in developing countries.

Local poor people will be hired at good wages to farm the lands, and housing and schools will also be provided for them, according to Dr. Bob Wynne, the Mayor of Maharishi Vedic City.

The start-up costs for this project to permanently eradicate poverty in the world are estimated to be only $100 billion over a 2 to 3 year period of time, and then to be self-sufficient after that.

What the hell is the matter with Dr Bob Wynne in the photo above? His hands are enormous! Either that, or his brain is really small.

We didn't realize the yogic flyers were so stinking rich. But when you can print up an endless supply of your own currency, money is no object.

A Dead Infant Or A Dead Fetus?

From the Des Moines Register:

Skeletal remains discovered by hunters last week in Audubon County in western Iowa are those of an infant or fetus, Audubon County sheriff’s officials said.

A group of hunters were checking their trap lines when they discovered the remains on Nov. 8, Sheriff Todd Johnson said.

He said officials with the Iowa State Medical Examiners office are conducting further tests to determine the age of the infant or fetus.

How dumb are the editors at the Des Moines Register?

This is the definition of "fetus" from dictionary.com:

1. The unborn young of a viviparous vertebrate having a basic structural resemblance to the adult animal.

2. In humans, the unborn young from the end of the eighth week after conception to the moment of birth.

If it was really a fetus, wouldn't it be attached to a mother?


Related: The information has been verified, has been scrutinized by editors, has been fact-checked and proofed.

Martha Stewart Went To Prison For Far Less

Updated below:



Another installment in the DMR of the "Dirty" Bill Knapp and Mark "Filthy" Wandro land-for-excessive-profits escapade in Polk County.

In the real world, we'd call such a thing insider information, but in Polk County it's called business as usual.

Tom Miller should put Bill Knapp and Mark Wandro in a pound-me-in-the-ass prison for a while.


Update: A reader asks...

Do you feel secure in the notion that Democrat-first, prosecutor-fifth, Tom Miller is really going to go after Democratic donor Bill Knapp?

We have enough instinct to know that Democrat Tom Miller would never EVER prosecute a fellow bigtime Democrat donor like Bill Knapp.

You know how it'll end up. There will be an inquiry, but it'll be one of those Al Gore-like "It wasn't illegal and I'll never do it again" sorts of situations. Everybody will look for a law on the books that Dirty Knappy and Filthy Wandro broke, but they won't be able to find one. Republicans and Ed Fallon will talk about creating such laws in the next Legislative session, but either nothing will happen, Gronstal will cut off debate, or Vilsack will veto any legislation outlawing insider information because it doesn't contain any tax breaks for wealthy corporations and doesn't save the life of the mother. Meanwhile, the Register will spend the next 9 months finding Republicans guilty of this sort of thing and mention Gavin Newsom in every article.

Basu Swoons For Not-Gay-Yet Gavin Newsom

Like we said yesterday, the Register has a bit of a fetish with not-gay-yet SF Mayor Gavin Newsom's visit to Des Moines recently, and today it manifests itself with Rekha Basu's column:

...ever since Newsom, in blatant defiance of state law, permitted nearly 4,000 same-sex couples to marry, the 37-year-old mayor has been the target of death threats.

And that's only part of the price he's paid. Newsom has also, in his words, become persona non grata with the Democratic political establishment.

They don't want their pictures taken with him. They don't show up at events where he's featured. Gov. Tom Vilsack was nowhere to be seen at Newsom's Iowa events Sunday and Monday. The lieutenant governor came, but she's not toying with a presidential run.

Why the distance? Some Democrats are afraid of associating with Newsom because of the gay thing.

Considering that most Iowa politicians look like Neanderthals, we can understand why they wouldn't want their pictures taken with a dreamy, good-looking young hunk with a fine, lithe, sexy body either. Who wants to be the ugly person in the photo standing next to the homoerotic-looking guy? Not us.


Update: Mainstream Iowa notices, as well.

Er, we mean the Gavin Newsom fetish, not the fact that he's so hot that women and their mothers would love to take him out for a breakfast of quiche and then shopping for Jonathan product.

Stop A Vast Error: Pull The Plug On The Rainforest

From Wednesday's Daily Iowan, by guest writers Carol deProsse and Clara Oleson:

The idea for a simulated rain forest was first proposed to the city of Des Moines, where it was rejected by elected officials and the business community. Backers Ted Townsend and Robert Ray then approached Cedar Rapids, and negotiations were underway when Coralville's City Council and city manager wooed it southward. Project director David Oman has now gone behind the backs of Coralville representatives to try to talk Dubuque into accepting what has become a figment of imagination.

Stop A Vast Error objected to this project from the outset, believing not only that a fake rain forest was an inappropriate tourist attraction for Iowa but also that the financial data provided by the backers were unrealistic, especially in view of the fact that many such projects were unable to be self-supporting and either forced to close their doors or to rely on tax dollars for continued operations.

It has always been our belief that a majority of the area's residents and elected officials did not support this project; but, despite massive outpourings of opposition, the idea of the simulated rain forest managed to stay on the civic agenda through the sheer will and undue political muscle of Townsend, Ray, and Oman. When Republican Sen. Charles Grassley managed to get $50 million worth of pork in the energy bill for this boondoggle, a positive end for the backers seemed to be in sight. This money also permitted Oman to begin drawing a salary against the grant, in excess of $175,000 a year. For its bit, Coralville displaced nearly 70 small businesses employing hundreds of employees, eliminating a significant tax base.

Grassley now seems to be appreciating this fiasco for what it is, and, hopefully, he realizes that the more than $30,000 that he and the Republican Party received in campaign contributions from Townsend, et al., influenced his decision to seek $50 million in taxes for the project.

Until we have campaign-finance reform, the political process will continue to be skewed toward millionaires and their harebrained schemes. Townsend, who has pledged $10 million of his own money to the project, bought Grassley's attention in a way that tens of hundreds of signatures on petitions, several town meetings, and innumerable letters to the editor and guest opinions in opposition to this project could not.

It is time to pull the plug on the simulated rain forest. We hope that the elected representatives of the people of Iowa will finally stop falling for the fancy talk and false promises of the project's backers.

Too bad deProsse and Oleson can't get an editorial like this published in the Des Moines Register, which lamely supports the project. This is a killer op-ed.

Grassley should continue get hammered on this issue, especially since he is trying to change the focus of the failed project from Johnson County to all of Iowa so that it can be dangled before another small town full of willing dupes and his Republican buddy David Oman can continue to draw a riduclously high salary. Clue to Grassley: We are watching.

Are You Going To Believe The Metrosexual or The Guy Who's Had A Brain Transplant?

Iowa Ennui has a big post about who's more truthful about what caused the prison break at Fort Madison: that homo metrosexual Anderson Vanderbilt or Lance Horbach, the Iowa legislator who recently completed a successful brain transplant.

We don't know who to believe, but a few years ago the Oakdale Prison, between Coralville and North Liberty, had a $650,000 fence that went on the fritz and two inmates escaped, but were later caught.

Horbach blames the problem on the Ft Madison escape on another shitty electronic fence that doesn't work worth a crap.

What the fuck??? Do the fuckheads in charge of our prisons in Iowa not check the fucking fences to see if they're working??? Everybody beat the shit out of that FEMA guy and Bush over Katrina, but nobody is taking Vilsack and Gary Maynard, the Director of the Iowa Dept of Corrections, to the woodshed because all these goddamned million-dollar fences that we paid for don't work and let convicted murderers out. What a joke. Time to roll some heads.

UI Tuition Blog

We get letters:

I'm a student at the University of Iowa. I'm in a class called Mass Communication and American Democracy. As a part of this class, we have been asked to form groups and create blogs on issues we feel are pertinent to the surrounding community. My group choose tuition costs at the UI. I happened across your site while doing research. I would be really interested to know what you think of our blog, or if you'd like to make comments, that would be great. Thank you for your time.

Christ. What have your parents been doing for the past 20 years? It's not like the politicians invented college accounts last week. 529 accounts have been around since the late 1990s and UTMAs have been around forever.

While the powers-that-be have been raising college tuitions at several times the rate of inflation for the past 25 years, that doesn't mean that your mom and dad couldn't have socked away $50 a month in a mutual fund all this time.

What kind of class is Mass Communications and American Democracy? Are you a Communications Studies major? Did you pick that? You'd be better off dropping out right now and cutting your losses.

Study chemistry at some community college, snag a part-time pharmacy tech job at some big box store for the experience and cash, and then buckle down to get your undergradate pharmacy degree. By the time you finish with your B.S. and complete your boards, starting wages for you will be around $100,000 a year in Des Moines. No shit. You want to be miserable all your life or just for a couple of years?

Oh Yeah We Forgot To Budget For Prison Guards

Updated below:

Rainforest con-man David Oman can pay himself nearly $200,000 a year in salary thanks to Senator Grassley and the Federal taxpayers, but the State of Iowa had to leave a watch tower empty at Fort Madison due to budget cuts.

And what do you know? Two murderers escaped yesterday because of it.

Priorities, people. Priorities.


Update: A reader writes:

I think the state has a monopoly on criminal housing. I'm thinking of getting Ankeny to push for municipally owned prison utilities. I'll form a group called OpportunityCriminal.

Yeah, that's the ticket! More services. Cheaper cost. Funded by the taxpayers people who are protected. Maybe we could get Chuck Grassley to put $50 million on the Federal charge card if we put a dome over it and some trees under it. Maybe charge people $42 a night for those who want to experience an evening in prison. Get Clarkie to run some fiber out so the inmates could have their choice of hardcore pr0n to watch all day long so they'll never leave. We'd also put the prison utility within 2000 feet of a school or daycare facility so that we wouldn't have to accept any sex offenders. Even a prison utility has to have standards! Somebody call Bill Knapp and see if he has some land to sell us at a really high markup. Let's get this puppy moving! We'll call UBG Financial about a loan and see if Vilsack will give us a tax break and Rants will get us some "fiscally prudent" taxpayer-financed corporate welfare. And since Iowa's prisons contain people who have relatives outside of the state, surely some tourism is involved. Don't forget to call up Michael Gartner and see if he can pull some strings in order to get some Vision Iowa money.

Time To Fire Up The Winnebago And Drive South

Des Moines International Airport
Last Update on Nov 15, 1:54 pm CST
Snow Fog
33°F

This Afternoon: Periods of snow. Steady temperature around 35. Breezy, with a north northwest wind between 13 and 16 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Tonight: Widespread blowing snow and a chance of snow, mainly before midnight. Cloudy, with a low around 23. Wind chill values between 10 and 20. Windy, with a northwest wind between 22 and 30 mph, with gusts as high as 47 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible.

Wednesday: Cloudy through mid morning, then gradual clearing, with a high near 28. Wind chill values between 5 and 15. Windy, with a northwest wind between 20 and 29 mph, with gusts as high as 46 mph.

Wednesday Night: Mostly clear, with a low near 12.

Map Sex Offenders

It was inevitable, wasn't it?

Mapsexoffenders.com uses the Google Maps API to show you where all the sex offenders live in your area.

As of today, Iowa isn't among the 38 states listed, but that will certainly change. So will most of the addresses of the registered sex offenders in our fair state ever since Iowa's bizarre and arbitrary sex offender residency law went into effect this year.

This is just the beginning. Eventually you'll see every crime statistic and police/fire call mapped out and with links to official documentation. It's bound to happen. Criminals will hate the future because they won't be able to hide. Bureaucrats will hate the future because we'll soon see how crime-ridden our supposedly "safe" neighborhoods and towns really are. We love it.

"How much is enough, Coleman? How many yachts can you water ski behind?"

The Press-Citizen is reporting that former UI President Mary Sue Coleman is the highest-paid public university honcho in the country, making nearly $725,000 a year. Not that there's anything wrong with it.

That's obscene, of course, but it doesn't stop Iowa Board Of Regents member Dr Amir Arbisser from clearly wanting to jack up the salaries of the heads of the universities in Iowa:

"I don't think you would find an individual like Dr. Skorton running an enterprise like the University of Iowa systems, which includes the (UI) Hospitals and Clinics, with a total annual budget of somewhere between $1.5 billion and $2 billion, for a salary in the range that he gets," Arbisser said. "It is a highly unusual bargain (for the state)."

So what you're telling us is that there's nobody highly qualified who will do Skorton job for, say, $275,000 a year? $250,000 a year? Unlikely. What a racket.

Don't forget that it was Mary Sue Coleman who thought it was fine to hire Steve Alford for $900,000 a year plus incentives after paying tried-and-true winner, Carver Hawkeye Arena-filling, and all-around nice guy coach Dr Tom Davis $430,000 in his final year.

There's nothing like rewarding failure excessively via the taxpayers and then moving on. It's the Iowa way.

Sales Slide For Iowa Men's Basketball Tickets

From the QC Times:

Sales of Hawkeye season tickets have continued a four-year slide that began after the 2000-01 season, the last time Iowa sold out 15,500-seat Carver-Hawkeye Arena on a season-ticket basis.

Iowa has sold 7,303 full season tickets for a 19-game home schedule, a decline of 3.5 percent from the 7,567 season tickets sold for an 18-game home schedule in 2004-05...

Season tickets cost $387 for the general public — a decrease of $21 from 2004 to 2005 — and the cost of student season tickets were slashed from $205 to $95 in an attempt to reignite interest in the team within the Iowa student body.

The student price translates to $5 a game, and that strategy seems to be working.

As of late last week, Iowa had sold 946 student season tickets. That’s up from the total of 473 sold a year ago. Athletic department officials had set a goal of selling 1,000 student tickets this season, a figure they believe they will reach as sales continue over the next few weeks.

It might have been a "marketing problem" after all, although getting rid of Alford-favorite Pierre Pierce probably helps slow the loss.

Daily Iowan: Cut The Rainforest Down

The Daily Iowan has a staff editorial today that is critical of the Rainforest project and calls for the city of Coralville to cut it loose.

Good for them. Only the newspapers in Iowa City have really come out against this joke.

Too bad the DI didn't bother to mention that Senator Grassley is also changing the availability of the $50 million $47.1 million from Johnson County to the entire State of Iowa.

Rainforest Records Released

Wow! That was a surprise! Oman and his gang of con-artists released an expense report from 2004:

The Environmental Proj-ect's two largest costs in 2004 were salaries for employees and payments to its former architectural firm.

Some $321,021 went to salaries for six people, five of whom started during 2004 and therefore did not collect full salaries, Oman said. Oman's salary in 2004 was $189,500 plus $5,310 in benefits, an increase from $148,791 in 2002 and $175,000 in 2003.

Oman gets a big fat raise every year for doing jack shit. What a racket.


Update: Corvis is pissed.

Gavin Newsom Looks Gay, But Isn't. Yet.

The Register seems to have decided to work San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom's recent appearance in Des Moines into practically every story. Hansen's column today is an example.

Newsom's big deal is that he allowed a few thousand same-sex couples to marry in San Francisco. Later on the marriages were nullified by the California Supreme Court.

We don't see what's the big deal about Newsom, other than he's a good-looking young guy. Offering up same-sex marriage in San Francisco is about as politically palatable there as being a politician in Polk County and offering to build every expensive thing under the sun on the taxpayer's dime.

More Dirty Bill Knapp

Tim Higgins and Bert Dalmer's series in the Des Moines Register on how the Ankeny DOT center came into being, and how filthy developer Bill Knapp engineered it, should be required reading.

A Year Since Those Fascist Animal Rights Terrorists Struck Iowa City

Can you believe it's been a year since those fascist vegan animal rights terrorists struck Seashore Hall in Iowa City, causing $450,000 worth of damage, wrecking research projects, stealing hundreds of animals, sending videotapes of their exploits to the regional media, sending threatening mail to numerous University of Iowa professors, as well as signing them hundreds of magazine subscriptions, but the FBI still doesn't have jack shit?

Perhaps the FBI would want to investigate who might have knowledge to construct a web page like this.

Woodward Tornado Video

Amazing video of a tornado and the aftermath in Woodward at the Iowa Channel.

Weasel Grassley Followup Rant

Yesterday we had a post about how Senator Chuck Grassley appears to be a weasel by coming out to the news media and saying he's going to introduce legislation that puts a two-year time limit on the $50 million Federal grant $47.1 million left for the Rainforest, yet the language of the new bill seems to change the focus of the project from specifically Johnson County to all of Iowa.

This just proves what a fauxscal conservative Grassley is. He goes to the lapdog Iowa media and basically says, "Look at me, I'm finally getting around to putting a time limit on what's left of the money because I need to appear like I'm protecting the taxpayer." In reality, he's just giving another two years of time for David Oman and his gang of con-artists to move the rainforest project to another town or to use Iowa taxpayers, Coralville's taxpayers, and a phony loan against land paid for by taxpayers and given to the project in order to bring back the undocumented spending of that $50 million Federal grant.

This stinks. What a con! What a ripoff of the taxpayers! When is somebody going to call Senator Grassley on it?

Grassley, you're a fake and a phony! You come off as this "fiscal conservative" when in reality you repeatedly screw the taxpayers and cause this country's charge card to max out while you're lining the pockets of your "Republican" friend, David Oman.

State 29: The Centrist Blog For Iowa

(Hat tip: Mainstream Iowan)

You are a Social Liberal (61% permissive) and an... Economic Conservative (65% permissive) You are best described as a: Centrist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

Senator Chuck Grassley, The Weasel

A reliable reader from Marion emails to say that the Cedar Rapids Gazette has a lead editorial today about the Rainforest project that says Senator Chuck Grassley is writing a bill which will not only give David Oman and the other con-artists two years to come up with matching funds for the $50 million $47.1 million left, but Grassley's also changing the focus of the project from just the Coralville location to all of Iowa. Here's a transcript:

Congress will require the project to raise $50 million before spending the federal government's $50 million, which was being drawn upon to pay project director David Oman's $175,000 salary and other planning expenses. But new legislation also would specify that the project could be built anywhere in Iowa, not solely in Coralville.

That has added fuel to speculation that project planners have been meeting secretly with city officials from Dubuque, something now acknowledged by Dubuque leaders. And that, in turn, might be the last straw for some Coralville officials who have been frustrated with evasive and deceptive answers Oman has given to serious and persistent questions about the project.

This is the first that we thought we've heard of a change in where the money can be spent. This didn't seem to be reported or highlighted in any of the other news stories published this week.

We have been unable to find anything in Thursday, November 10th's Senate Daily Digest or anywhere else on the Senate web site. Naturally, newspapers don't bother to provide the bill numbers. There's nothing like an ignorant public to keep the pork flowing and the backs a'slappin'!

Upon re-reading this Iowa City Press-Citizen story on Wednesday we understand what the Cedar Rapids Gazette is talking about. This section below is what the ICPC quoted from the Grassley legislation (emphasis ours):

"is provided for the Iowa Environmental and Education project to be located in Iowa. No further funds may be disbursed by the Department of Energy until a one hundred percent non-Federal cash and in-kind match of the appropriated Federal funds has been secured for the project by the non-Federal project sponsor: Provided, That the match shall exclude land donations: Provided further, That if the match is not secured by the non-Federal project sponsor by December 1, 2007, the remaining Federal funds shall cease to be available for the Iowa Environmental and Education project."

The highlighted section above is a big difference in wording compared to what Cityview Des Moines said in their Civic Skinny column on October 20th about the original appropriation:

And lastly, even though there have been rumblings about possibly relocating the all-but-dried-up rain forest idea from Coralville to Des Moines, if anyone involved would bother to look at the federal pork legislation regarding the project, they would notice it calls for the behemoth to be built only in Johnson County.

We tried looking for the amendment that Grassley snuck into the bill that was passed on January 22, 2004, but it's almost impossible to locate it to confirm the wording. (Searching for Congressional legislation really sucks. Somebody call Google and index that thing. - Ed.)

If the Cedar Rapids Gazette editorial is correct, and it probably is otherwise why would they mention it, then Senator Chuck Grassley has shown that he's a complete weasel. Yeah, yeah, we already know he's a fauxscal conservative, but if he failed to tell newspapers that the focus of the $50 million $47.1 million pork grant to David Oman and company was changing from Coralville to the entire State of Iowa then that's just plain dirty. No wonder the Coralville City Council is upset! Why aren't newspapers talking about this more?

Oman and his gang of con-artists have had six years to come up with private, non-taxpayer money, and they haven't had any donations. Where does Grassley think this other $50 million is going to come from? Oman spelled it out clearly the other day: $20 million from Vision Iowa (Iowa taxpayers), and at least $20 million from Coralville taxpayers, and a $40 million "loan" against the land that Coralville taxpayers paid for and would be donating to the project.

porkbusters

Dirty Bill Knapp

Des Moines-area developer Bill Knapp, one of the con-artists backing Clark McLeod's scam to use taxpayer money to develop and fund McLeod's fiber startup, gets reamed a new one in Sunday's Register for making windfall profits due to inside information that have cost taxpayers dearly:

Taxpayers, though, ended up paying twice. Besides $200,000 in loans not repaid to Polk County and Ankeny governments, the state of Iowa last year bought seven acres of the former expo property from Knapp and Elwell at a price that amounted to an 866 percent profit for the developers. In a transaction never debated publicly, the Iowa Department of Transportation paid the developers more than $130,000 an acre for a new driver's license station that many residents oppose.

Mark Wandro, the public official who negotiated the license-station deal in 2004, was a key force in 1999 behind a multimillion-dollar interchange on Interstate Highway 35.

Around the time the expo sold its 84 acres in 1999, Knapp and Elwell were also buying property in the area from private landowners who were unaware that, behind the scenes, the interchange was moving toward fast approval.

Disgusting.

See? Deer Don't Weigh A Lot

From the Cedar Rapids Gazette a few days ago in the Letters section (via NewsBank):

How many Cedar Rapidians have compassion for the dazed fawn walking on Mount Vernon Road with an arrow struck through it? Do those members of the council who enabled such an atrocity, even though the deer population has been relatively stable since 2000, have any remorse? Is there a twinge of guilt from the all-hunter lethal subcommittee of the Deer Task Force that perpetuates the myth that 2,400 deer live inside the city? Do those who want animals killed care? How do the countless people feel who don't want deer killed, but have looked the other way? The deer suffer whether or not we witness their individual suffering...

Cedar Rapids should have tried non-lethal methods to help people coexist with deer. Numerous communities that have implemented such methods haven't proceeded to killing deer. Research shows that hunting increases deer-vehicle accidents, escalates reproduction and doesn't end browsing. Countless "ignored" studies exist as proof.

We collectively have stepped backward in moral progress.

Inara Powers, Cedar Rapids

It should be noted that the sole member of the Cedar Rapids City Council who voted against bowhunting within that city's limits, Wade Wagner, failed to qualify for a runoff election for an At-Large seat. Wagner thought about asking for a recount, but called it off on Friday.

Wagner, if you don't remember, once said that deer are as tame as pet dogs. Good riddance, ex-news reader.

Register Finally Does A Story On The Rainforest

The beginning of this piece in the Des Moines Register mentions how Rainforest chief con-man David Oman and his filthy followers have spent nearly $3 million of Grassley's $50 million taxpayer grant.

Buried further down is this:

The rain forest, like many other nonprofits, is not subject to the open-records law in the same way, say, a city council is.

Besides the $50 million grant, Oman's private group persuaded Coralville to spend millions of dollars assembling and clearing a 22-acre site along Interstate Highway 80 for the $180 million rain forest, aquarium and educational project.

These are the two big problems.

First, Oman should open up the record books to show everybody where the money is going. We doubt that will ever happen. Oman avoids the media unless he has a bunch of BS to peddle. In practically every news story that is somewhat critical of the rainforest project the reporter always mentions that he or she has had to leave a message that is never returned.

Second, no wonder Coralville is pissed. They've bent over backwards and spent millions in order to create a site for the project and now Oman and his con-artists are talking to other cities.

Update: Doh, somehow we missed this.

Rainforest Con-Artists DID Talk To Dubuque's Leaders

From WHO-TV, via the Associated Press:

Iowa Organizers of an indoor rain forest project say they'll give one more shot at working a land deal in Coralville.

If that fails, they'll find another place to build their forest.

Board members of The Environmental Project decided today to continue talks to get 22 acres along Interstate 80.

But hours after that decision, city officials in Dubuque said they've already spoken with organizers about building the rainforest in their city.

That news bothered Coralville leaders, who called the organizers' actions in Dubuque inappropriate.

Wherever the rainforest is built, organizers predict it will become a major tourist attraction.

The Coralville City Council should tell David Oman and Bob "Filthy" Ray to screw off and take their stupid rainforest somewhere else. It's long overdue.

You think it's bad now? Wait until the thing is being constructed and there's cost overruns. Who do you think is going to be paying for that?


Related: Rainforest Negotiations A Setup? and Fauxscal Conservative Grassley's $50 Million Pork Has Been Bankrolling Day-to-Day Porkforest Operations and Oman's Con Game, Spelled Out

Rainforest Negotiations A Setup?

A reader pointed us to this piece in the Cedar Rapids Gazette's free section:

Rain forest path a slippery slope?
Published: 11/11/2005 5:13 PM
By: Zack Kucharski - The Gazette

CORALVILLE, IA - Some City Council members here say additional negotiations with the group planning to build the $180 million indoor rain forest is a set-up by the project to force negotiations into an impasse and allow the project to move elsewhere.

Council members suspect the project, which is any day expected to provide the city with conditions the city is to meet if the project is to be located here, will raise demands for land and other assistance to levels Coralville can't meet.

''My view of this is they're sending something back to us that we can't accept so that we're the bad guys and they have to leave,'' said City Council member Tom Gill. ''This whole thing is a setup to make us look bad. We keep going back and forth trying to work it, and it just hasn't been working.''

The city sent a list of its terms to project leadership in late August and has since been waiting for a counter-proposal. Board members met Thursday in Amana and told the project's executive director David Oman to once again attempt negotiations with Coralville.

Gill probably has a point in that he's frustrated at being treated like some minor league chump by Oman and his gang of hoity-toity con-artists, but in all honesty we don't see where the rainforest is going to go.

Des Moines? Not a chance. Taxpayers are bogged down with so many projects in Polk County that this couldn't possibly fly.

Davenport? Impossible without all the cities on both sides of the Mississippi banding together, and that ain't ever gonna happen.

Grinnell? You're joking.

Dubuque? They're going to be too busy paying $80+ million for a municipal communications utility that will lose money so a few residents can pay $35 a month to download MP3s, waReZ, and pr0n instead of $40 a month. Plus it isn't along a major interstate.

We can't guess on Tom Gill's hunch, but we think that if Oman and the con-artists behind the Rainforest turn the tables and issue a whole bunch of time-sensitive demands on the Coralville City Council then we think the news media in Iowa and the taxpayers in Coralville should raise holy hell against the following idiots for not recognizing that they're being strung along:


Jim Fausett, Mayor
Phone: 319-351-6338
Email: jfausett@ci.coralville.ia.us


John Lundell, Council member
Phone: 319-351-1125
Email: jlundell@ci.coralville.ia.us


John Weihe, Council member
Phone: 319-338-1159
Email: jweihe@ci.coralville.ia.us


Henry Herwig, Council member
Phone: 319-351-3119
Email: hherwig@ci.coralville.ia.us

Blogs Done Right At The Mason City Globe Gazette

The Mason City Globe Gazette has done an excellent job at integrating quality blog content and comments into their web site. They even have a photo blog.

Outstanding work!



Compare the Mason City Globe Gazette blogs to the moronic, me-centric babble of the DM Register's Juice blogs.

High School Senior Is The New Mayor Of Roland, Iowa

From the Ames Tribune:

A week ago, Sam Juhl was blowing out the 18 candles on his birthday cake. Today, he is celebrating victory as mayor of Roland.

"Even though I didn't care how it turned out, it feels good to win," said Juhl, a Roland-Story High School senior.

A combination of Juhl's interest in history and politics - and the fact that no one else in Roland was willing to run - pushed him to get his name on the ballot.

"No one else wants to do it," Juhl said.

His mom, Judy, said he has been talking about running for a few years.

"At first we thought he was just kidding," she said. "When we realized he wasn't, we were all for it ... (his father, Dennis, and I) think he will do a good job."

Do a good job, son, or you're grounded!

There's more to the story:

Juhl said no one wants the job because there is no voting power. But that is why the job is perfect for him.

"I am not really in a position to make a decision that could affect people with families and kids ... the mayor is only a facilitator, and I can do that," Juhl said. "It's mayor, it isn't like it is that big of a deal compared to voting for a president."

Juhl said he has prepared as much as he could. He started reading the city council meeting minutes a few years ago, attended the last four council meetings and has began reading Roberts Rules of Order to understand meeting procedures.

With citizenship merit badges, debate club, and service on the student council, Juhl said he is as qualified as any other mayor has been.

"Politically, I have as much experience as a lot of people in town," he said.

His scoutmaster, Duane Canny, from Roland, describes Juhl, who is an Eagle Scout, as committed.

If you're an Eagle Scout, you're probably more mature and disciplined about things than most older adults.

And isn't it funny that he can get elected Mayor of a town, but he can't buy a cold one.

Random Hit A Deer

She's OK, but her car will need some work.

How about some blood-splattered pics?

That makes two Iowa bloggers who have hit deer in the past week ("Here Crashed Bambi").

Here's a list of all the lockers in Iowa participating in the HUSH (Help Us Stop Hunger) program for the 2005-2006 hunting season. We'd probably advise against anybody field dressing a deer that's been hit by a car, especially along the side of the road. And the absence of a deer tag might annoy the locker owners, even if you can point to visible damage on your vehicle.


Update: The only way a deer is really going to go through your windshield is if it falls out of the sky.

Chet Culver Is A REALLY BIG Dumbass

Updated below:

Not content with promising to fluff the ethanol and biodiesel industries with taxpayer money and running around promising to get automakers to relocate their manufacture and assembly plants to Iowa, Chet Culver now faces questions concerning a huge controversy in this Charlotte Eby piece in the QC Times.

Any public official who allows the public access to the Social Security numbers of individuals, but also ignores concerns raised by the Iowa Citizens’ Aide Ombudsman, deserves to be prosecuted for malfeasance.

More on this issue at Midwest Mesopotamia and Iowa Ennui.

Update: Cityview Des Moines has the best explanation in their 'Civic Skinny' column this week (not archived):

Despite being warned by the governor's office and repeatedly by the state ombudsman, Secretary of State Chet Culver's office will not remove the personal financial information of some extremely heavy hitters, a number of whom are Democrats, leaving them "wide open" as targets for identity theft. "It's not criminal. He's not breaking the law," a top state source told Cityview. "But he's leaving a lot of people exposed." A brief search of the site showed personal financial data and/or social security numbers and EIN numbers for politicians like Sen. Majority Leader Stewart Iverson and Sens. Jack Kibbie and Brad Zaun, as well as some of Central Iowa's wealthiest business leaders - some of whom have given money to Culver campaigns. Ombudsman William Angrick has refused to name the Secretary of State's office in official reports for fear of rampant identity theft if the information were to leak out, but told the Cedar Rapids Gazette earlier this month that as many as 1.2 million Iowans could be at risk. So why won't Culver take the information down? Our source said Culver has complained that he doesn't have the resources to do so and that his office is in compliance anyway. Culver, until Angrick threatened to turn the matter over to the General Assembly's Government Oversight Committee according to documents obtained by Cityview ("I believe this is a critical issue which needs to be addressed by your office as soon as possible."), ignored the ombudsman for months before having deputy Charlie Krogmeier "acknowledge" the ombudsman's correspondence. Look for more on this story in coming weeks.

Stick a fork in Chet Culver. He's done.

Fauxscal Conservative Grassley's $50 Million Pork Has Been Bankrolling Day-to-Day Porkforest Operations

Buried within today's story in the Iowa City Press-Citizen about how Chief Con-man Oman and his gang of taxpayer teet-sucking sycophants have pledged to keep working with Coralville (despite rumors that the Rainforest Gods had been in discussions with people in Des Moines, Grinnell, and Dubuque), is this:

The board's decision comes a day after Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, announced that with his approval, an appropriations bill was passing through Congress that would freeze the $50 million grant until project leaders came up with non-federal matching dollars, excluding land contributions. Furthermore, the money permanently would be reclaimed if the matching funds were not raised by Dec. 1, 2007.

The grant had been bankrolling the day-to-day operations, with about $2.9 million drawn on the grant. Oman said a number of options were being pursued for funding operations, including seeing if project founder Ted Townsend would front more than the $10 million he initially put forth.

Isn't that great? Senator Chuck Grassley, the fauxscal conservative, essentially kept this stupid project afloat thanks to putting it on the country's charge card. Thanks a lot, Senator Pork.

A trustworthy reader in Marion also emailed us (but not confirmed yet via news reports published on the internet, although it will be eventually) that the Cedar Rapids Gazette is reporting that Oman expects the City of Coralville to help raise an additional $20 million for the project. Kelly Hayworth, the City Manager of Coralville, took umbrage at being blindsided by that. When we get the text of that news report, we'll put it out there.

How convenient that David Oman, the Chief Con-Man of the Rainforest Project, would leave out such a suggestion until after the re-election of the Coralville City Council, none of whom were challenged in the voting booth.

Once again, here are the politicians in Coralville who continue to be in favor of this project. They are the ones who have allowed the country's charge card to be used to the tune of $50 million by Senator Grassley. They are the ones who may put other projects in Iowa at risk because of the seeking of $20 million of Vision Iowa money. And they are the ones who are putting Coralville residents at risk for thousands of dollars in increased taxes because Oman hasn't been able to raise a single dime of private money in six years other than Ted Townsend's initial $10 million pledge:


Jim Fausett, Mayor
Phone: 319-351-6338
Email: jfausett@ci.coralville.ia.us


John Lundell, Council member
Phone: 319-351-1125
Email: jlundell@ci.coralville.ia.us


John Weihe, Council member
Phone: 319-338-1159
Email: jweihe@ci.coralville.ia.us


Henry Herwig, Council member
Phone: 319-351-3119
Email: hherwig@ci.coralville.ia.us


Update: Not only does today's Register not report on yesterday's meeting of the Rainforest con-artists and the Coralville City Council members in the Amanas, but they offer up a wimpy-assed editorial that agrees with Grassley putting a two year deadline on the $50 million $47.1 million grant. Naturally, they're still in favor of the Rainforest and regret regret regret regret that this had to be done. Ah well. What do you expect from central Iowa's monopoly corporate media outlet that continues to kiss David Oman's ass, fails to look at the project critically, and continues to support this con-game? It's also the same Register that runs Oman's wife's column. What a bunch of crap.

Friday Iowa Blog Roundup

The Fly is leaving the blogosphere scene.

Drew Miller appreciates the "always reliable" State 29 blog.

The Political Forecast thinks we don't have any class.

Iowahawk's Coupe Of Justice gets some love on Jalopnik.

Taurid Meteor Shower Observed In Iowa

Those shooting stars you've been seeing the past couple of nights? They're the Taurids.

Oman's Con Game, Spelled Out

David Oman explains how he'd finance the Rainforest. Details at the PorkForest web site.

Senator Harkin Wants To Force Oil Companies To Pay The Extra Heating Costs Of Schools This Winter

From WNBC:

Schumer, D-N.Y., said he will push an amendment with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, in coming days to try to force oil companies to pay the extra costs to keep students warm.

Who's going to write out the first check, Ruth Harkin?

Tom Harkin's wife used to be a Director at Conoco for a number of years, ironically it was during a time in the past when the Senator was also complaining about the "windfall profits" of oil companies. What a hypocrite.

Vernon Weems' Fable

From Radio Iowa:

A Waterloo attorney is joining the list of Democrats running for governor. Vernon Weems makes his living as a business consultant and says companies and residents of Iowa are overtaxed. Weems says he would abolish the state income, property and inheritance taxes. He says you could replace the revenues with a fee or tax on agricultural products.

He says for example, you could put a one dollar tax on a bushel of corn or beans and tax meat products by the pound. Weems says the state could also tax manufacturing products. He says you could tax things like the John Deere tractors made in his hometown of Waterloo by maybe 10 or 15 dollars. He says that way you could maintain the same budget, but the money instead of coming from corporations and the private sector, the money would come from businesses outside the State of Iowa.

Weems says it shifts the burden from inside the state to outside. He says currently about 58-percent of the corn that is sold is exported out of the nation, so he says foreign countries would be contributing about 58-percent of the corn tax. Weems says while this would make Iowa products more expensive than those sold in other states, he does not think it would put Iowa companies at a disadvantage.

This is probably the first and last post we'll have about Vernon Weems because he's absolutely off his rocker and is not a serious candidate.

While it's true that Weems ran for Mayor of Waterloo in 2001, some additional information is needed in order to put it in the proper context. Weems got 82 votes, good enough for sixth place, and garnered less than 1% of the total vote.

Belated Humpday Dumpday From Iowahawk

Iowahawk has a hottt new CILF from the Polk County Caged Heat Jail web site in his belated Humpday Dumpday column.


Related: The Way Of The Transgressor Is Hard: Photo Tips From Polk County Jail Inmates

National Summit On Preventing Riots To Be Held In Ames

From Radio Iowa:

The City of Ames and Iowa State University are hosting a national summit on preventing riots and other civil disturbances. Charles Cychosz of the Ames Police Department is one of the coordinators of the two-day conference that begins today (Thursday).

Cychosz says the conference came out of discussions on what to do following the most recent disturbances on the I-S-U campus during Veishea. He says it's clear that this type of thing has been going on in other communities across the country and they wanted to bring people in and talk about the "best practices" to prevent and manage the problems.

Heh.

Greg Alan Blog and Radio Show

Don't forget to visit WMT radio host Greg Alan's blog for some criticism of Senator Grassley's recent tirade against oil companies.

We also noticed some recent State 29-pushed topics on Alan's page on the WMT web site, which is separate from Alan's personal blog, along with a link to us.

We've never heard Alan's radio show, but it's bound to be interesting if he's covering some of the topics we do.

The State 29 blog always extends an open invitation for members of news and TV media outlets, especially those in Iowa, to do stories based on the things we uncover. You don't have to credit us in any way since anything we write about is usually hyperlinked and available in the public domain. Some bloggers get upset if their work is plagiarized, but not us. Steal all you want.

We may have a shovel, but if you have a Bobcat or a backhoe, feel free to dig deeper.

Thursday Iowa Blog Roundup

Iowa Ennui ponders why Vilsack and Blouin have ignored Red Oak.

Random is amused by how many condoms can fit on a dildo.

Patriot Skull Face says:

Here's something that I didn't see picked up anywhere by anyone but Bob Vander Platts' website.

Ed Fallon has been making significant strides in name recognition and support. From September's Zogby poll:

Nussle - 45.6 percent
Fallon - 40.3 percent

In May, Fallon had 19% against Nussle.

Funny that the Register, David Yepsen, or anyone else who continues to shun Fallon's candidacy doesn't cover these numbers.

The Tax Update Blog says you can have your hybrid SUV and get a clean fuel deduction of $2000 in 2005.

John Skipper wonders: "Are sex offenders different than other ex-convicts?"

The Fly doesn't think blogs are all that constructive when it comes to political discourse.

Ultraviolette had a rather boring weekend:

Eventually this girl I know came over and sat down. Everything was fine for a while. She's nice enough and we talked about art since she's an artist herself but after she gets a little tipsy she becomes a raging molesting lesbian. I felt like I was in a fucked up afterschool special.

There's another Rainforest blog. It's called Rainforest In Iowa?

Iowa Restaurant Inspections

Radio Iowa reported today that Iowa's restaurant inspections are going online via a State database. Their link was all wrong. Here's the correct link to find restaurant inspection reports: http://foodandlodgingreports.iowa.gov/

Click on the Find An Inspection Report button to start your search.

You have to narrow down your searches rather well. The database, for some bizarre reason, won't allow more than 50 options to be displayed. If you're looking within a town larger than about 1500 people you ought to include the name of the restaurant.

This is a great service. It's always good to know if the place you're about to visit has been pegged in the past for filthy restrooms, storage of chemicals in food prep areas, or if mouse droppings were observed in the utensil storage bin.

Grassley: Two Years Left To Raise Rainforest Money

Senator Chuck Grassley, a fauxscal conservative, has given Chief Oman and the other con-artists another two years to raise private money for the rainforest in Coralville or else lose it all (Minus the $2.9 million they've already spent of it. - Ed.).

Story over at the PorkForest web site.

Will Iowa Be Soft On Gubernatorial Candidates Who Run Stop Signs And Kill?

That's probably it for Gregg Connell.

From the DMR:

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gregg Connell was involved in a traffic collision in Pottawattamie County Tuesday that killed an Atlantic man after Connell, the mayor of Shenandoah, failed to stop at a marked intersection.

David Juhl, 51, of Atlantic was pronounced dead at Atlantic Hospital after the wreck at the crossroads of County Highway M 47, also known as 500th Street, and Highway 92 (Google Map) between Griswold and Carson.

Pottawattamie County Sheriff Jeff Danker said Connell was ticketed for running the stop sign while traveling south on M 47.

Connell didn't have much of a chance, but this should end it for him.

Waterloo Courier Thinks Internet Polls Are News

It's hard to believe a newspaper could pull a bigger boner than publishing the results of an internet poll on their web site as actual news, but the Waterloo Courier sure did yesterday while voting was occurring for the issue of creating municipal communications utility in Waterloo:

An overwhelming number of respondents to a nonscientific Courier online poll favor the establishment of a municipal telecommunications utility.

Results of the poll, conducted Friday through 8 a.m. today, show 376 respondents, or 61.7 percent, favored the utility, and 233, or 38.3 percent, opposed it. On the second question, 455 respondents, or 88.6 percent, favored creating a board of trustees to run the utility and 58, or 11.3 percent, wanted it run by the City Council.

This is such a major screwup on the part of the Waterloo Courier.

Why did this "poll" make it as the lead part of a news story, especially on election day?


Related: Who Are The Real Fatcats?

Waterloo Telecom Vote Outcome

The Waterloo Courier has a story on which districts voted for and against a municipal communications utility:

Voters appeared to be divided by income on whether or not they supported the measure. It lost in every precinct in the third and fourth wards, encompassing all of east Waterloo and the near west side, in lower to middle income areas of the city. It also lost in two precincts in Ward 5 and one precinct in Ward 2, also on the near west side.

In contrast, the measure carried the more affluent areas of the city, in the first and second wards in south Waterloo, by margins of up to 65 percent.

There ya go. The poor people were happy with the way things were. The rich people of Waterloo clearly can't afford to pay the extra $6 a month that Mediacom charges residents for frills like digital cable and broadband internet when compared to Cedar Falls' utility-customer-subsidized and money-losing community utility.

That's so f'd up it makes our heads spin.

Harkin Wants Democrats To Filibuster Alito

Mainstream Iowan has a post about and links to news stories that say Tom Harkin is cheerleading an effort to get Democrats to filibuster SCOTUS nominee Samuel Alito.

All You Need To Know About Wallace Hettle

We've stayed away from the bloggasphere controversy surrounding UNI professor Wallace Hettle because, frankly, it's boring as hell.

But Iowa Ennui has a couple of posts that point everybody who's into this story in the proper direction. This initial post that points over to Iowa Libertarian's take and today's followup supply a bunch of good links.

Even State 29 has dogged on Professor Hettle in the past. How he ever got to teach history at the university level (even if it is UNI...) is nothing short of amazing.

Chief Oman Attends A Conference

Chief rainforest con-artist David Oman and the latest bunch of overpriced architects and consultants are attending some "environmentally conscious architecture conference" in Atlanta.

No word on where the money is to pay for it all.

Story at the PorkForest web site.

Telecom Vote Roundup

The DMR has a good article on how the voting went for all the communities with municipal communication utilities on the ballot:

The proposal was defeated in Nevada and six other communities served by telephone company Iowa Telecom. "I think it shows that (voters) just took the time to research the issue," company spokesman Dan Eness said. "They realized a municipally owned telecommunications utility was not in the best interest for them."

That's kind of ironic in face of the vote in Dubuque, where clearly stupid voters there overwhemingly passed the measure despite the city spending nearly $90,000 to study how much a communications utility would cost. The result was somewhere between $8 million and $80 million dollars over the next 20 years (Try the latter figure at a minimum... - Ed.)

The good thing about some communities passing these measures is that we'll be able to track who goes ahead with setting up a utility, as well as keeping an eye on all the other communities who created them in the 1990s and are still struggling to keep them from continuing to leak red ink.

You Don't Have To Live Like A Refugee

From the Des Moines Register:

Polk County supervisors gave initial approval Tuesday to an ordinance that prevents many sex offenders from moving to most rural areas of the county.

The unanimous vote came in the face of opposition from sex offenders, law enforcement officials, and at least one resident who described the move as hysteria.

"I think it's time this got brought to a screeching halt," Bruce Wilson of Des Moines said.

The restrictions would make more than 90 percent of unincorporated residential areas off limits to many child molesters.

So the Polk County Board of Supervisors thinks it's OK to ban people from living anywhere in the county who have already served their time, probably had treatment, served their parole, paid their restitution, and are getting on with their lives? What the fuck???

That's persecution. That's beyond double jeopardy. We can't wait until the SCOTUS throws out this clearly arbitrary and unconstitutional law.

Kill Iowa's Bottle And Can Deposit Law

Here's a story in the DMR that indicates why Iowa should get rid of the ancient bottle and can redemption law.

With Iowans paying for recycling programs already, it is time to ditch the pointless, expensive, dirty, and time-wasting redemption law.

Waterloo Votes Yes On Communications Utility

Update:

Looks like a municipal communications utility has passed in Waterloo. 53% to 47%.

Massive defeat of a telecom utility in Hiawatha, nearly 9 to 1 against.

Massive defeat of a telecom utility in Marion, 77% to 23%.

Defeat of a telecom utility in Vinton, 53% to 47%.

Clark McLeod's scam passes in a lot of the smaller towns.

Munipical power utility failed spectacularly in Iowa City. 2 to 1 against.

The Way Of The Transgressor Is Hard: Photo Tips From Polk County Jail Inmates

Don't wink at the camera:



Don't piss off the guards. Some of them might know Photoshop:



The shaved head/growing facial hair thing always looks badass:



Acquire a good nickname, like Meathead:



Get a haircut that doesn't stand out:


Chicks who look like Gov Vilsack in drag:



Chicks who look like Whitesnake lead singer David Coverdale:



Always adopt a stare that says, "What you call my momma, MFer?"



If you're an ugly MFer, take a few tips from Tom DeLay:

Here Crashed Bambi

The Geeks have a few pics up of their deer-dented pickup. It looks like the truck won't be totalled.

Most deer crashes that result in deaths aren't because of a carcass smashing out the windshield in a car or a truck, but because the driver veers off the road and either hits an obstruction or flips over. Or you're driving a motorcycle.

Right now Iowa is in the thick of the rut season, where the bucks are all horny and running around like Pierre Pierce with a stolen cell phone.

If you're really concerned about safety, consider buying a Volvo. They're engineered to protect the vehicle's occupants from crashing into a moose, which usually weigh about 1000 pounds. Adult bucks, on the other hand, are generally less than 200 pounds.

Big Surprise: Iowa Still Soft On 15 Year Old Illegally Driving Cokeheads Who Kill

From the Des Moines Register:

A teenager has pleaded guilty to charges stemming from a hit-and-run accident that killed a toddler.

Addy Beecher, 15, of Davenport, pleaded guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter, leaving the scene of a fatal accident and drunken driving.

She was sentenced to the custody of the Iowa Department of Human Services until she is 18 years old. Beecher, who police say did not have a license, was given in-home detention for three weeks until there is an opening in a residential detention center, court officials said.

Police say she was high on cocaine and marijuana when she hit 2-year-old Autumn Sky McCleary on Sept. 2.

Even if Beecher had been tried as an adult, the longest she would have spent in jail would have been five years.

We know Iowa's laws concerning impaired drivers who kill are totally worthless and weak, but it's about time that Iowa took the lead in the United States and made public the records of juvenile offenders from age 10 to 17.

Where did Addy Beecher get the pot and coke? Where did she get the car? There really ought to be other people charged in this case.


Related: Iowa Still Soft On 15 Year Old Illegally Driving Cokeheads Who Kill

Four New Hospitals For Iowa? Don't Bet On It

From the Iowa City Press-Citizen:

Two out-of-state medical corporations have proposed building up to four new hospitals in Iowa that would focus on critically ill, elderly people who would need to stay for weeks at a time.

According to initial documents filed with state regulators, Select Medical Corp., of Mechanicsburg, Pa., wants to build a pair of $16 million, 50-bed hospitals in Polk and Johnson counties.

Regency Hospital Co., of Alpharetta, Ga., wants to build an $11.4 million, 60-bed hospital in Des Moines and a $10.4 million, 44-bed hospital in Iowa City.

They would be long-term acute care hospitals. Backers say they focus on caring for patients who are too sick for nursing homes but who need longer-term care than do most hospital patients...


...In the past two years, the Iowa Health Facilities Council has denied permits for proposed hospitals in suburban Des Moines and Iowa City. The regulators said both projects would needlessly drive up health care costs.

The new proposals would require approval by the state board. They also would have to offer many hospital services, such as emergency care, said board administrator Barb Nervig.

A Select Medical Corp. attorney, Ed McIntosh of Des Moines, said the proposed hospitals wouldn't compete with established institutions for traditional hospital business.

"They don't expect, and they don't get, heart-attack patients and other typical emergency patients," he said.

Leaders of nonprofit hospitals have been wary of other types of specialty hospitals, which they see as a financial threat

If more hospitals drive up health care costs, then maybe every hospital in Iowa should consolidate and locate in downtown Des Moines in one big building.

We remember when the idiots who comprised the Iowa Health Facilities Council rejected the Michael R. Myers Hospital in February 2004, which had over $20 million in pledges from individuals lined up including $15 million from regional developer Myers himself. (Hey, that's more money than the stupid Rainforest has had pledged! - Editor)

We also remember the Des Moines City Council essentially telling West Des Moines to drop dead.

Via NewsBank, here are some quotes from the Des Moines Register's article on February 5, 2004:

Council member Cynthia Beauman of Spencer said the choice was excruciating. "Do you know how hard it is to do the right thing when you don't know what the right thing is?" she asked an audience filled with health-care leaders. ". . . We've got people saying one thing and people saying another thing, and I want to believe everyone."

Beauman said most of the supporters focused on the hassle of traveling the extra 10 miles to Des Moines' downtown hospitals. She said that as a rural resident, she faces a two-hour drive to reach a major medical center. "Convenience?" she said. "You folks don't understand."

Waaaa waaaa waaaaa! Why can't they build a Mayo Clinic in my backyard in Spencer? Waaaa waaaa waaaaa! Can you believe a person this selfish, arrogant, and dumb is on some state council? You build hospitals where the people are!

Council member Gary Butz of Norway noted that the council heard from numerous wise people, either supporting or opposing the project. In the end, he said, he relied on the wisdom of the "Star Trek" character Mr. Spock while weighing the medical desires of suburbanites against the inflation fears of the rest of the state. "Spock always said, `The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.' "

What the hell was Butz-head talking about then? The needs of the monopoly in Des Moines outweigh the growth of the suburbs around Des Moines.

The council is designed to determine if large medical projects are necessary and economical. It historically has approved more than 90 percent of those reviewed, but Friday's decision marked the second time in five months it rejected a proposed hospital. In September, it unanimously turned down a $14 million rehabilitation hospital planned in North Liberty.

Nichols said the West Des Moines project brought the most controversy he'd seen in five years on the board. He speculated that much of the dispute stemmed from simmering tensions among Des Moines residents, rural interests and people living in the suburbs. He said he hoped those old strains could be set aside for the good of the whole community.

So it really wasn't about driving up health care costs, eh? It was all about Des Moines controlling where the hospitals are located.

Always was. Always will be.

West Des Moines Mayor Gene Meyer criticized the Des Moines City Council for unanimously opposing the proposal, which he believed was crucial to his city and its suburban neighbors.

"I think it is a quality of life issue. West Des Moines has never taken a position against any other project in any other municipality," he said. "Des Moines chose to oppose us. I don't believe they needed to take the position they took."

West Des Moines City Councilman Brad Olson said he was disappointed, but not surprised, by the outcome. "It was politics at its best, or really politics at its worst," he said.

Olson noted that the hospital's support included a $15 million pledge from the family of homebuilder Michael Myers. "I don't think you would see the Des Moines City Council saying anything if Mr. Myers chose to build it in the city of Des Moines."

Des Moines City Councilwoman Christine Hensley said her council had every right to stand up for the interests of its residents. She said Des Moines was just one of many influential opponents to the project.

"I think it is very unfortunate that all the blame is being laid at the feet of the city of Des Moines," Hensley said. "To say this was politics at its worst I think is unfortunate."

Hensley said she feared the new hospital would raise everyone's health-care costs, including those of city workers. She also noted that if Methodist's plan had been approved, its rival, Mercy Medical Center, probably would have closed a hospital it owns on Des Moines' east side and replaced it with a West Des Moines facility.

She said the city would consider offering incentives if Methodist considers expanding its downtown location.

Hensley to West Des Moines: Drop Dead

Back to the Press-Citizen story from today... Replace the word "hospital" with "casino" and think about how different the reaction from the State bureaucrats would be.

Who Are The Real Fat Cats?

We're taking Opportunity Waterloo proponents Rick Young and Ross Christensen to the woodshed one more time for their column in the Waterloo Courier yesterday (news story / our response).

In the letter, Young and Christensen said this:

7. Who are the real Fat Cats? In 2004 Mediacom's Chairman and CEO, Rocco B. Commisso, was paid approximately $2 million. The Chairman and CEO of Qwest, Richard C. Nuiebaert, was paid $10.7 million. It is apparent who the real Fat Cats are and why they want us to vote no, to keep competition away.

We could write this off as Young and Christensen playing the class envy card, but when you throw Clark McLeod's past actions back in their face they look pretty damn stupid.

From Corridor Business News:

In February of 2000, founder Clark McLeod exercised his stock options worth over $90 million. By early 2001, the company’s stock started dropping and in October 2001, McLeodUSA laid off about 1,600 employees, 400 of them locally. In January of 2002, the company declared bankruptcy and Mr. McLeod retired.

Don't forget that Clark McLeod was part of a lawsuit brought by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer in 2002:

SSB provided 32 IPO offerings to Clark McLeod, former CEO of McLeodUSA, from September 1997 to June 2000. McLeod personally made more than $9 million on the deals. SSB received some 16 investment banking deals during the period and received fees approximately $49 million.

Other CEOs have settled, but we were unable to dig up what happened to McLeod.

And, finally, don't forget McLeod was knee-deep with now-former Salomon Smith Barney analyst/liar Jack Grubman. This is from Business Week:

The relationships in Grubman's network go back years. Clark McLeod sold his long-distance upstart to MCI in 1990 for $1.25 billion, pocketing $50 million. Then, in the mid-1990s, Grubman and the bankers at Salomon helped him launch a new company called McLeod Communications, raising $3.4 billion for construction of a 31,000-mile telephone network. McLeod, a Midwesterner who handed employees copies of his book This Way Up, boldly promised that revenues would hit $11 billion by 2007. Grubman maintained a buy rating on the company--right until it declared bankruptcy in January of [2002] with $1.8 billion in revenue...

So there, Young and Christensen. Who's the fat cat now, huh? Ya dumbasses.

Who do you think paid for Grubman and McLeod's losses with that company's bankrupt stock? Got an answer??? Employees like Ronald Speltz, that's who!

The Best Defense

Has anybody else noticed the obsessive focus that the media puts on how much private companies are spending to defend their business in the wake of recent campaigns by a small number of individuals to force taxpayers to foot the bill for numerous questionable public utilities?

Here's part of an opinion piece in the QC Times today:

Imagine if Mediacom, Qwest and any other telecom company invested $4.75 for every man, woman and child in our metro area. That would go a long way to improving our community’s communications infrastructure and provide competitive high-speed internet access to attract business.

What sort of lameass bullshit is this? Don't you think Lee Enterprises would spend a ton of money if a small number of people wanted the public to vote on forming a media utility that involved a community newspaper?

The Des Moines Register also ran an AP story yesterday obsessing on the issue of how much Mediacom is spending.

Dubuque spent $89,000 on a feasibility study and discovered that a municipal communications utility might cost each resident up to $1400 each (up to $80 million) over the next 20 years. And as we all know, government can rarely do anything within budget, especially when it comes to technology.

Here's another example, a letter in the Daily Iowan concerning Iowa City's vote for a public energy utility:

The news that MidAmerican Energy has spent more than $500,000 to defeat the public-utility initiative is extremely troubling, for several reasons. Clearly, MidAmerican has made a business decision and makes a far greater profit in Iowa City than $500,000 per year. There are only 70,000 people in Iowa City. If MidAmerican had distributed that money to the Iowa City consumers, instead of spending it on a desperate smear campaign, every student and resident in Iowa City could have had energy bills that were $7 lower.

Why is the news story on election day about how much a private business is spending to defend what they do? Should Mediacom and Mid-American Energy have just rolled over and not defended themselves? S