Monday round-up

• Could someone please remind me why the legislature wants armed students, faculty, staff, and other persons on the University of Utah campus? Last time I checked, it wasn't a high crime area, let alone an area with lots of violent crime requiring a gun for ones own protection. And apparently, I am in the vast majority about this one:
  

  The Deseret Morning News/KSL-TV poll shows 64 percent of those surveyed think guns should definitely or probably not be allowed on campus. That's compared to 36 percent who think concealed weapon permit holders should be allowed to carry guns.
  The poll, conducted by Dan Jones and Associates on Jan. 2-4, has a 5 percent margin of error.

  
  Why does state law then force the U to accept guns on campus? Because they are more interested in appealing to the NRA lobbyists than actual constituents. They are trying to out conservative each other.


• Sign number 234 that Gore will not be running for president but is still popular and trying to start a movement around global climate change:
  

  After about 1,500 tickets were snapped up in 10 minutes for former Vice President Al Gore's speech later this month, Boise State University has moved the speech to a larger venue and is offering more tickets.
  Gore is now scheduled to appear at Taco Bell Arena to give the keynote speech of a conference sponsored by BSU's Frank Church Institute. The speech is set for 7 p.m. Jan. 22 and is titled ''Global Warming: Beyond the Inconvenient Truth''

  
  That's right Boise, Idaho. No disrespect to Broncos fans [what a game!] or people from Idaho, but if you are running for president, you don't give speeches in Idaho, you give them in New Hampshire, Iowa, South Carolina, Nevada, Michigan, etc. But if you care about your issue and aren't just posturing for the cameras, you go to places like Boise.


• Allow me to join the crowd and applaud SPEAKER Pelosi for setting term limits on Committee Chairmen. This was, as Ed Kilgore points out, the only good idea Newt had. True change cannot come without abandoning the chairman for life mentality. All of the major incoming committee chairmen just waited out the Republican majority for 12 years to get their gavels back. As Sen. Obama said on Oprah, those who are in DC too long start representing Washington to their constituents rather than their constituents to Washington. How much of a reformist can one be if one can indefinitely weld power? Chairman Waxman is a "Watergate baby" i.e. Class of 1974. John Dingell has been a member of the House since 1955, longer even than Ted Kennedy. Dingell has written major legislation, like the Clean Air Act, but he also has stymied improving fuel economy for cars to "help" Detroit Automakers. Just ask them how much they were helped when you compare Toyota's hybrid sales to their own SUV sales. It's time for a change.


• And lastly, a store that was never open finally closes its doors for reals this time.
  

  Amy's Antiques in the 9th & 9th district, an attractive old brick building literally shuttered with plywood for more than 10 years, is approaching its final transaction.
  Lou Diston, who owns the building and ran the resale shop for 20 years, is finally unloading what's left of her decades of picking up remnants from estate sales she managed.

  
  I remember in middle school and high school walking past Amy's and wondering how one could get away with such a fake "business" where one bought crap and pretended to have a store but never sold anything. I haven't taken a tax course in law school, but I always assumed there was some pecuniary reason for this setup.