Line of Thoughts

The economy is falling apart.  Credibility that this administration can handle the current crisis is fading by the day.  What does congress set its eyes on?  Why how college football picks the number one.  Stupid.

 The incredible article.

You use a band aid on 99% of wounds and get stitches if it is too bad.  You use your eraser when you mis-write and only replace the entire sheet when there are too many changes.  So what do you do if you are the city of Seattle facing 8+ inches of snow in a once in a decade snow stom?  WHy not put salt down of course.  The politicians of Seattle have decided to put their citizens at risk in order to make an environmental stand that is hallow in its meaning.  Nice way to play with peoples lives Seattle.

 Story is here.

It is about time but Detroit’s embattled Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick finally resigned Thursday.  It is too bad this took most of the year to finish.  I am sure Detroit will be able to finally start healing now.

Here is the timeline.

There are few more sordid political stories unraveling these days then that of Detroit Mayer Kwame Kilpatrick and his ongoing legal issues stemming from lying about the sexual relationship he was having with an aid and the ramifications this had on a multimillion dollar city settlement.

Now the Hip Hop Mayor of Detroit is getting the privilege of being locked up in jail overnight per a Judges order.  This all stemmed from Kwame taking a trip to Canada without first informing the court.

 When will this all end?  Only when Kwame decides to put the city and state first and resigns.

See the story here.

This is beyond words.  A teacher in Florida had her class vote on whether a five year old boy with autism should remain in the class or not.  The boy was voted out by a 14 to 2 margin.  The teacher then had the class describe what they did not like about the boy and they came up with terms such as disgusting.

Link to Story

The boy spent the rest of the day in the nurses office and the parents were not even notified until  the mother came to pick up the child.  Understandably the child is disturbed about the incident and the mother has not had him return to class.

his teacher should be ashamed and no longer a teacher.  The district will not comment yet even though the facts of the incident are not being disputed.  Shame…shame…shame.

This type of behavior is not acceptable and no one should put up with this.  The teachers name is  Wendy Portillo of Morningside Elementery School in Port St. Lucie Florida.

Here is the link to school district.  Every parent should be outraged by this type of asinine behavior.  There is also an online petition that I have found to protest the actions here.  If you wish to contact the school directly the following link summarizes the events and gives great contact information here.

Latte at Starbucks™: $5.50.
High Speed Internet: $34.99
Lying about being under sniper fire while visiting Bosnia: Priceless

At least lie about something were there is not incontrovertible proof that what you say is not true. Her spin is sounding extremely paltry on this one. Claiming there was sniper fire in the hills does not in any way mitigate the video evidence that there was no running with heads ducked down to avoid fire.

Chelsea doesn’t seem very comfortable discussing this either.

Don’t take this as an endorsement of anyone but you really have to hand the Clintons some sort of award for incredulity.

Michigan is a state I love. I have lived in Michigan my entire life. I love the sites and the people. I would say I love the weather but that would be a lie. But my oh my how far we have fallen. We have the highest unemployment rate in the country. Our roads and infrastructure are a shambles. Our economy has floundered for a decade. The of course there is Detroit.

The Wayne County prosecutor has decided to prosecute the Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick for lying under oath both about his affair and the reasons surrounding his firing of the former police chief. The text messages between himself and his paramour (his former Chief of Staff) are a matter of public record. The Mayor has never been especially friendly with the press and the City Council has asked that he resign. Yet the Mayor insists he will be vindicated. If it was virtually any other city I would say no way. But again this is Detroit so who knows.

Articles breaking March 24, 2008:
Who hired the lawyers?
Charges Pending.
Who Ousted Brown?
12 Count Felony Indictment.

The United States is a nation of laws: badly written and randomly enforced.

Frank Zappa
(1940 – 1993)

It is hard for me to comprehend how not playing by the rules is an activity that we should reward. Granted, we all know every rule has an exception. An exception is one thing, a pattern of sporadic enforcement as it is convenience is another thing.

Take for instance the most current example of convenience enforcement. We see today an argument by Howard Dean that the delegates for Florida and Michigan should count. Not only should the votes count but the votes should be done over again.

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8V82ODG1&show_article=1

Huh?

I really don’t get this. Lets put this in order of events here a minute. Michigan and Florida decide to move their elections up so that they are more relevant. The Democratic National Committee strips the states of their delegates in order to punish the states. The major candidates agree with the stripping of the delegates. On the Michigan Ballot Barack Obama did not even appear and on the Florida ballot Obama did not campaign. Barack Obama’s actions were in accordance to an assumption that the rules would be followed as laid out already. Without too much surprise Hilary Clinton swept both states primaries.

Fast forward several weeks and the mathematics of delegate counting make it difficult for either candidate to get a true majority. Also the possibility of a victory by Hillary Clinton is very daunting. Now, there is sudden anger and outrage that the delegates from Michigan and Florida need to be seated.

Huh?

I don’t get it. Again it gets even more interesting. Instead of simply seating the delegates or not seating them. Both a choices being total wins for either Hillary or Barack the Democratic Committee seems to be considering an even odder choice. Forget the rules; forget what we agreed lets just do it over. This is inconceivable. It isn’t the same race, it is untidy and it just doesn’t make any sense.

It reminds me of another rules fiasco from a few years back. Does anyone else remember when the scandals became too much for Robert Torricelli to hope to win reelection he stepped aside? The Democratic governor of the time, Jim McGreevey, appointed Frank Lautenberg to the ballot. The amazing thing is that the New Jersey State Supreme Court voted that the appointment was valid regardless of the fact the ballot change deadline had changed.

My problem with these issues is not that the choices were wrong or bad. I don’t even argue whether the motivations are misguided or not. That isn’t my point. My point is that once you have a rule you better think once, twice, thrice before ignoring it for convenience sake. Until we start following this rule Frank Zappa will remain correct.