the modernizing of Utah's liquor laws

(Utah State Liquor Store hours, by Don Nunn.)

[Note: there is a bill in the state senate to end the election day ban of liquor sales, as well as a push to end the ban on Sunday sales...so far, neither has been successful.]

When my college friends came out to Utah for my wedding (or any other time out of staters come to visit me), I had to sit them down and explain to them that a "private club" was really just a bar and that a "temporary membership fee" was just a mandatory cover charge, as well as the near impossibility of bar hopping. I also had to give them a summary of the "sidecar" rule and about Utah's falsely labeled "weak" beer. They looked at me with confusion and disbelief. Could it really be so Byzantine, they wondered? What a farce, some said. Others compared it to South Carolina's mandatory mini-bottle rule. Our state's laws with regards to alcohol are so counter-intuitive that the tourism office has a whole page dedicated to explaining the particularities of the Beehive State's liquor laws on their website.

First, the legislature did away with the sidecar last session, simultaneously making a Utah shot the same as a shot anywhere else in the world.

Second, it seems that "private clubs" might soon become bars and the usual meaning of word will return to Utah.

The state moved slightly closer to eliminating private club memberships, with members of the liquor commission requesting that legislation be drafted that would do away with the applications and fees now required of patrons.
But there was division among the Utah Department of Alcoholic Beverage Control Commission members over whether the change sought by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. is needed to accommodate drinkers, especially those just visiting the state.
[...]
Huntsman hopes to persuade the 2009 Legislature to eliminate private clubs. The LDS Church, which counsels its members to avoid alcohol, has yet to weigh in on the issue.

The Church's opinion on such matters is key. If the Church is persuaded that changing the rule is wise, then it will pass. If they oppose, the bill is dead in the water. But if they remain neutral, my bet is that teh proposal will be kicked down the road again.

Gov. Huntsman also wants to get rid of the "Zion Curtain" --the rule that there must be a physical barrier (these days, a piece of fogged glass usually does the trick) between the dining and drinking portions of a restaurant that wishes to have a bar inside. But that one, he agrees, must take a back seat to the private club fight, and will be shelved for another year.

Huntsman's push for ending private clubs means of all of the proposed reforms, this one stands the greatest chance of passage. The election day bill is sponsored by Sen. Scott McCoy, who is a Democrat from the Avenues who is openly gay...which means he has a tough time getting bills passed. And the Utah Restaurant Association is pushing Sunday sales as well as the private club bill, but they will need to wine and dine the mostly non-drinking legislators more to get these changes through (pun intended).

operation keep it close

Some of my Democratic friends are worried. Despite all of John McCain's screw-ups, he seems to be still within striking distance of winning. And if he taps Romney, they fear, Michigan and a few other Kerry states might fall into GOP hands. And so goes the presidency. But lets look at the facts.

1. Of the top ten best-funded House candidates who are challenging incumbents, nine of them are Democrats. The better funded the challenger is, the greater the likelihood that they will defeat an incumbent. And I am not even counting open seats, where 27 of the 29 House open seats were vacated by a Republican, and the top 15 contests feature 1 Republican with more money than the Democrat. In other words, the House is not only going to stay Democratic, but also the Dems will likely gain 10-20 seats, some of which will come from the following swing states: NC, PA, VA, OH, NM, MN, WA, MI, MO, FL and yes AK. With the large money advantage that the Democratic cogressional campaign committees hold over their GOP rivals, this means more money spend on turning out Dems and Dem-leaning independents all over the map, which can only help Obama.


2. The number and type of swing states favors Democrats. The most recent poll says Obama trails McCain in North Carolina by a mere 4 points (the margin of error was 3.4 percent). And PPP was pretty accurate on NC during the primaries...the Pollster.com average for this state is a mere two point McCain lead. On to Alaska, where McCain leads by less than 8 points according to Pollster. Or North Dakota, where McCain's lead is less than 3 points. Ditto for Montana. Two points in Colorado according to Pollster, but FiveThirtyEight.com, who got the most accurate results estimates in the primaries, thinks Obama is still narrowly ahead. Even narrower leads for McCain in these states: .8 in Florida, .7 in Missouri, and .6 in Indiana. Obama has an eight point lead in New Mexico, an 6.5 point lead in Iowa, and 6.1 point lead in New Hampshire. What do all of these states have in common? They all went for Bush in either 2000 or 2004 (or both). I didn't even mention the tight races in Nevada, Virginia, and McCain's "home" state of Arizona, or the Alaska-like closeness in Georgia. The only Kerry state--other than New Hampshire--Obama has to watch closely is Michigan, where he is up 7 points (or if you believe the conspiracy theories, Ohio, where Obama has a 3.5 percent lead). In other words, McCain is forced to defend many more states than Bush ever worried about in 2000 or 2004, and McCain's offense is limited to NH and MI because Obama has shored up the previously shaky states like OR, WA, PA, WI, and ME. There lots of ways Obama can get to 270+ electoral votes, but McCain can't without holding onto Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Indiana, and Nevada, as well as pulling Michigan AND either Iowa or New Hamsphire back into the fold (or add Missouri to McCain's collum and you need Colorado and New Mexico instead of Iowa or New Hampshire). Try out the scenerios for yourself at 270toWin.com. Why do I mention states like Alaska and Georgia? Because Obama can afford to spread the field wide and keep lots of states close (which helps lots of down ticket House and Senate races in places like Alaska), rather than hunkering down on a few states and working on his triple bank shot like Democrats mised in 2000 and 2004.


3. Obama's trip went well. If politics is watching TV with the sound turned off, then the images of him looking tough with Gen. Patreaus, talking and talking with various important heads of state, as well as a crowd of 200,000 Germans with people waiving US flags certainly trumps McCain standing in front of a German House or spilling apple sauce in a grocery store. And the polling confirms it: his lead has jumped back up to its highest levels against McCain since Obama came home.


4. The enthusaism gap. Here's how the Hotline explains the latest Pew poll:
   

   John McCain's supporters believe Barack Obama is the candidate with new ideas (58% to McCain's 24%). McCain voters also say Obama is more likable (45% to 34%).
   
   [...] Just a quarter of [GOPers who backed another Republican for President] supports McCain strongly, compared with 57% who support him only moderately. Herein lies the chief quandary for McCain. How does he generate enthusiasm from his base and court the precious swing voters he needs to win?

All in all, Obama is still rightfully the odds on favorite to be the next President, but it is by no means a lock.

in defense of earmarks

[The imfamous Bridge to Nowhere, artist's rendering courtesy of Anchorage Daily News]

With news that apparant Congressman-to-be Jason Chaffetz is against all earmarks, I wanted to point out that earmarks in and of themselves are not bad, only the Congress critters that exploit them are (I am looking at you, Alaska delegation).

An after-school learning program in West Valley City, transportation projects in Provo and a nursing program at Utah Valley University are all recipients of federal earmarks that Jason Chaffetz says should have never been funded.
The earmarks are among $9.4 million U.S. Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, helped secure for local projects that were slipped into appropriations bills through an earmark process that's frequently criticized as pork barrel spending.

Chaffetz defeated Cannon in a June Republican primary and says he doesn't care if the money would benefit his district or the state — he wants no part of earmarks.

"Until there's reform, I will not ask for them. They're a cancer within the system, and I want to extract them," Chaffetz said by telephone from Washington, D.C.

I suppose if one is going to crusade against earmark abuse and for earmark reform, one has to forego earmarks in one's own district. Yet I don't think kids in West Valley should have to suffer for this cause.

Those earmarks are for fine projects, Chaffetz said, but they shouldn't circumvent the executive branch's competitive-based selection process.

"I think there are ways to get appropriations done for worthwhile projects. It shouldn't be done through the cloak of darkness," he said.

This of course assumes that those in the executive branch in charge of the selection process don't make backroom deals or play favorativism with requests from members of Congress from their political party. And given this Administration's illegally partisan hiring and promotion practices at the DOJ, the conviction of a guy in charge of purchasing policy for the entire government for obstruction of justice and lying to protect his Abramoff-connected buddies (the conviction was overturned on proceedural grounds a month ago), I wouldn't place as much confidence in the executive branch to do the right thing as Chaffetz does.

Earmarks can be a sign of a members power and ability to horse trade, but they can also be a sign of projects that need to be funded at a certain level lest kids in West Valley decide to join gangs rather than shoot pool at an after-school center, for instance. And let's remember this chart as well, and also remember who was in charge of Congress from 1994 until 2006.

(Graphic by the Washington Post, based on Congressional Research Service data)
The first step to curbing Congress' addiction is not to cut off cold turkey, but to reign in abuses and have the people kick out the biggest abusers. If polls are to be believed, Rep. Don Young and Sen. Ted Stevens (Rs-AK)--two of the biggest offenders--will not be a part of the 111th Congress. As long as Congressman/woman's names are attached to their earmarks, and they aren't jammed into phone-book-sized bills at the last minute, we have a good shot at stopping the insanity.

The American Dream

(Photo Credit: Paul Fraughton/The Salt Lake Tribune)

To me, what makes one an American is not where you were born or who you were born to (that's citizenship) but rather, whether you strive to make your family's lot in life better. The American Dream isn't limited to 2.34 kids with a house in the suburbs with a white picket fence. It trying to make the Haratio Alger myth a reality.

Abdulkarim Abed Hasan and his family endured war and hardship in their Baghdad home for three years before moving to Syria. After two years there, the family was admitted to the United States as refugees and into an Avenues apartment in Salt Lake City in June.
If the parallel [to the story of the Mormon Pioneers] seems a bit strained, 49-year-old Abdulkarim would be the first to admit it.
"When I came here I saw that Mormons are very good. No drinking. No drugs. Better here than Las Vegas," he said. "But the past [of Utah], I don't know much about."
No matter. The Hasan family embraced its first Pioneer Day.

Adul-Karim is right, but I will add two more things Islam has in common with the LDS faith (one which he implied): believing that gambling is a sin, and that women should dress modestly. The forbidding of eating pork, charging interest, and eating with the left hand, of course do not apply (along with the other obvious ones). So who's to say that they won't feel at home in Utah, which is also a desert?

The Hasan family embraced its first Pioneer Day. Abdulkarim took his wife and five children to the Steiner Aquatic Center for a swim the day before, a luxury they have long missed since Baghdad's recreational centers were left destroyed or neglected. They gathered on the lawn to watch the evening's fireworks, then ventured downtown the morning after for celebrations. The parade was nice, but the fireworks impressed.
"When I see fire in my country, people die," Abdulkarim said. "This was different."
The family members count themselves among the lucky few who have left the violence and chaos of their home country to make it into the United States. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHRC) estimates the war and its aftermath created more than 4 million Iraqi refugees. Half remain uprooted inside Iraq; the remainder live in Syria or Jordan where they are denied work.

A sobering fact. Let's hope their country (and the region) can be stabilized and that the next president will allow more refugees come to share in the promise that is America.

The family is loath to name a sectarian allegiance. "We are Muslims," said 10-year-old son Abdulrahman. "There is no Sunni or Shia."
Not content to sit at home, Abdulkarim said he is searching for work as a translator for construction companies rebuilding Iraq.
"Next year I'd like to see all Iraqis living here go to the [Pioneer Day] celebration together," he said. "Because we live in Utah, and benefit from life here, we must say thank you and celebrate with the community."

I am sure I speak for Utahns when I say, "You are welcome and welcome here."

Neither gaffes nor mistakes

When John McCain has made false statements, like mixing up Shia with Sunni, saying Iraq instead of Pakistan when talking about the boarder area where Al-Qaeda/Taliban remain, saying that Iran is allowing Al-Qaeda [in Iraq] to move about freely across their boarder, or saying the Surge is responsible for the Anbar Awakening, he is not (as some have claimed) confused or senile or ignorant of foreign policy .

Rather, it appears that these are intentional mistatements, ones designed to convey a message: that we should attack Iran, stay in Iraq indefinitely, and beef up in Afghanistan.  (Where all of the troops and equipment necessary for such efforts would come from, he never explains.)  

The misstatements are perfect precisely because they can be chalked up as mistakes.  This gives McCain the ability to claim that he didn't mean what he said when  fact checkers call him on it, but when not confronted with reality, he can get his message across to those who don't follow the details.

The whole thing is a revival of the Bush Administration's tactics to get us into war with Iraq...to say things to suggest more than even their flimsy evidence would support.  But the literal meaning of the statements allowed them to wriggle out of what they had hinted at. [Like the famous 16 words, "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."]

Oh and my verdict on McCain repeatedly saying Czechoslovakia instead of the Czech Republic? Force of habit, like some older people who still say the now passe version of words like "Asian" "African-American" "Russia" and in McCain's case "Vietnamese"

Kanab-ing tax dollars for nepotism

First suspicious stuff in Kane County tourism board, now their economic development board?

Kelly Stowell, son of Sen. Dennis Stowell, R-Parowan, was hired last week as a special consultant/executive director for southwestern Utah's Center for Education, Business and the Arts, located in Kanab. Sen. Stowell represents Kanab and surrounding counties and supported the funding for CEBA.

In addition to his [$80,000 per year] base salary, Kelly Stowell can earn another $20,000 if certain goals are met over the next year, said Christina Schultz, chairwoman of CEBA.

A number of state senators received an e-mail Tuesday complaining about Kelly Stowell's hiring. A July [16] story in The Spectrum, a St. George newspaper, has on its Web site a posted comment that makes the same allegations as the e-mail: that Kelly Stowell is unqualified for the position and that Sen. Stowell helped get CEBA a $125,000 grant funded by the 2008 Legislature that provided the money to hire a new consultant/executive director.

That's right by using 'the Google' I discovered that the Deseret News got the wrong date. Oh and the CEBA people say Kelly's the right son man for the job, even though he "is probably about 25 years old."

It seems the whole state is rife with examples of, at the very least, appearances of impropriety of actions that could be seen as quid pro quos involving members of the legislature.

four-days a week

Governor Huntsman's innovative idea (I think Burmingham, AL might have proposed it first, but Utah is the first state to adopt it) to switch to a 4-day work week is already popular with state government employees:

Employees were asked a series of questions to measure their attitude toward the new schedule. Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. announced the workweek as a way to save an estimated $3 million annually in energy costs by closing many state buildings on Fridays.

Fifty-six percent of those responding said they preferred working four 10-hour days to the traditional five-day workweek. Under the governor's plan, on Aug. 4 about 23,000 employees will begin working from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Thursday.

Most respondents said they anticipated the new schedule would have no impact on meeting child-care needs, using public transportation, holding second jobs or attending school.

More than 40 percent said they believe the shorter workweek will have a positive impact on their personal activities outside of work, while nearly 31 percent said the impact would likely be negative.

But more than 60 percent disagreed with the statement that there were many negatives associated with the new schedule that could not be overcome. Nearly as many disagreed that working four 10-hour days would be very inconvenient.

The results are similar to those found by another recent survey, which was conducted by the Utah Public Employees Association. The four-day workweek was favored by 75 percent of the state workers who took the association's e-mail survey, the UPEA reported.

The quasi-union likes it, the state-sponsored survey like it, it saves energy, both public tax dollars and private fuel costs. What's not to like? The only drawback is trying to get any state government related chore done on a Friday. But then again, you can use Utah.gov's online services to do things like renew a driver's license or vehicle registration...that saves time and stamps.

bury that lede

Occationally, I read a headline that makes me laugh, other times it is the lede (aka the opening lines of an article) that intregues. This time it is the later.

Rep. Chris Cannon has a reputation as a wonkish legislator working on the intricacies of intellectual property, technology and financial issues.

Really? According to whom does Chris have such a reputation? Chris Cannon and his staff? Because as far as I can tell, Cannon has a reputation of being a party stalwart and guy who says stupid things. In other words, the exact opposite of a wonkish legislator. Unless by "wonkish" he means "got a lot of campaign contributions from those industries." If that is the case, I agree.

The rest of the article is about his admirable efforts to create prize money to cure a rare form of cancer. But I had to include this last bit of ridiculousness found at the end of the article.

Cannon decided he is principled. He also doesn't consider himself a politician.
"That's why it is not uncomfortable for me to be out of touch with my constituents," he said.
Still, he wouldn't rule out a return to elective office or Congress, saying it was "very possible" he would run again if the political landscape changes and he had a shot at rising into House leadership.

Yes, a "wonk" who "isn't a politician" but is instead "principled" would want to seek a leadership post of his party, requiring ultra-partisanship and political skills to sway hundreds of his fellow House Republicans to promote him to be their leader. Cannon just reaffirmed my assessment of his reputation.

a good Samaritan

(Courtesy of Liberty News)

Yesterday driving home from my working vacation in Idaho, I had both incredibly bad and then good fortune. This parable from Luke's gospel sums it up.

And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee. Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves? And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.
--Luke 10:30-37 (King James version)

Sure, I was going from Sun Valley to Salt Lake, and it was the family from Phoenix and not a Samaritan. But the message is the same.

One of my tires' treads blew off my car while I was going (ahem) 80 miles an hour on the freeway. First off, thank goodness no one was near me, because I swerved as I tried to regain control of the far. Second, thank goodness I was only a mile from a rest stop and only 14 miles from Snowville, UT (basically at the border), a town that had a couple of gas stations and hotels etc.

And most importantly, a family stopped at the rest stop and offered to help. First by lending me their iPhone to call AAA (Sprint had no coverage out there). It soon became obvious that AAA had no idea where I was and wasn't going to be able to help at all for at least a couple hours, so they changed my tire. Yes, I am completely useless on the handyman end of things (just ask my wife). Also, thank goodness that I had a half-way decent spare, of course, it was practically flat. So we crawled to Snowville and put in a quarters into a machine to inflate the tire. Then we drove 55 mph all the way back to SLC...about 110 miles.

But enough of our harrowing tale (check your tires), I wanted to say thank you to all those who offer to help strangers in the middle of nowhere out of the kindness of their hearts. Drive safely everyone.

a working vacation

No, not that kind. I will be in Sun Valley all the rest of the week for Continuing Legal Education (CLE). (And I thought school was over!) So doubt I will keep up with all of the latest news, polls, and scandals. But hey, I'm on vacation.

Have a great week/weekend.

nuclear waste storage is Yucca

On the heals of news that the proposed nuclear waste storage site Yucca Mountain--90 miles from Las Vegas--will cost $20 billion more than expected, Rep. Jim Matheson reiterates his proposal.

Yucca site is seeking a license to store some 77,000 tons of the radioactive leftovers.
Between 87 percent and 95 percent of that waste would travel through Utah en route to the southern Nevada facility, and Utah could again be looked at as a potential storage site for spent nuclear fuel.
Rep. Jim Matheson wants to take another route: leaving the waste where it was created.
The Utah Democrat pushed the Department of Energy official and others Tuesday about a bill he introduced in 2005 to have nuclear power plants hold onto their waste at reactor sites and for the DOE to take charge of them.
"The transportation of nuclear waste across the continent creates more problems than leaving it where it is," Matheson said, noting he does not oppose nuclear energy. "I just don't think moving the waste to Yucca Mountain really solves the problem. Even if we were to magically open Yucca Mountain today, we wouldn't have enough room for the waste we have."

Congress critters who don't live in Nevada or Utah don't see what the big deal is, because they aren't in the path of potential disaster and they don't want their waste anywhere near them.

That concern was shared by Rep. John Shimkus, R-Ill., who argued Yucca Mountain makes the most sense because it is remote and "there's no one around."
"If we can't put it in the desert, under a mountain, we just can't put it anywhere in this country," Shimkus said.
[...]
"A delay doesn't work for anyone's benefit," said Rep. Charles A. Gonzalez, D-Tex., who added that a lack of a clear storage plan is an "argument against improving our reactor capacity."

Au contraire, Congressman Gonzalez. A delay works to benefit of people in Utah and Nevada.

the truth about Oil

Rep. Rob Bishop decided to let out his old partisan ways (he was, after all, speaker of the Utah House before he was the 1st District's congressman) on the issue of high gas prices.

Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, led a GOP attack Thursday against Democratic House leaders, complaining they are refusing to address high oil costs while they piddle instead with minor bills this election year.
"We're not dealing with the real issues that affect people," Bishop told the House. "We're dealing with the small stuff, the trivialities. ... This is like junk food. It's like cotton candy. It's there. It's fluffy. It's airy. But it is not filling. It has no fiber. It gives the illusion of activity, but in essence we're dealing with a cotton-candy agenda."

Bishop led the Republican attack as the House debated a bill to designate a national historic trail from Rhode Island to Yorktown, Va., marking the path taken by George Washington and the French Army during the Revolutionary War.

On message even if off-topic. The current policy prescription for high gas prices by DC Republicans is

1. Drill in ANWR
2. Drill offshore CA and FL
3. Have a gas tax holiday
4. Create a myth that China and/or Cuba is drilling in the Caribbean

First, the portion of Alaska's North Slope currently part of the wildlife refuge does contain some oil to be sure, but not that much--about 200 days worth. Even supporters note that it would take 5 to 10 years to get the oil flowing to America. So this would have zero impact on today's prices, which look as far out as 6 months.

Second, the same problems occur offshore drilling as with ANWR. High cost of recovery, risk of spilling, long time frame to get the oil out, and relatively small amounts of oil and natural gas.

Third, a gas tax holiday will not lower gas prices, they will only serve to increase oil company profits and reduce money available to build/repair roads.

Fourth, China is not drilling off the coast of Cuba, no matter how many members of Congress repeat the claim. Even VP Dick Cheney admitted that his earlier claim was false.

Not that the Democrats' are much better. Their plans might promise long-term solutions (like switching to solar and wind power, reducing consumption, etc.) but offer little in the way of fixing the problem now. Imaginary taxes, regulations and investigations are not going to lower the price of gas that much. Heck, the Democrats can't even pass this year's budget, how are they going to get those three things through Congress?

The real answer is that not much can be done right away. The oil companies stopped building and even went to so far as to sell or shut down as many refineries as possible to set up this whole "bottleneck". Now to be fair, some of the blame falls on NIMBY--people that didn't want an oil refinery near their home. And until Americans driving habits--including the type of car they drive--change, our demand will continue to rise. Another part of the problem is out of our control: China and India's explosive growth has lead to more people with more money, meaning more oil consumption (and more pollution). But no politican can pass up a chance to promise something that people want, or to blame the oposition for the problem.

Gift Idea

Today after church I was watching my favorite TV time waster: some top whatever nostalgia show on VH1. (Man, have they cornered the market on that crap or what?) Anyway, I saw an ad two or three times and I thought to myself, "Now I know what to get Rudy Giuliani for Christmas!"


Check it out in all of its glory here (warning, the ad runs immediately with sound) [H/T Democratic Underground]

9+11=20, get it? How mindbogglingly exploitative. Thanks Liberian government! Can some one please explain to me who buys these coins/metal dollar bills and why?

Footdragging 101

If by chance you are ever named the head of an administrative agency, and you don't want to do something youa required by law to do, I would suggest you follow in the footsteps of a master: EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson.

The Environmental Protection Agency plans to announce today that it will seek months of further public comment on the threat posed by global warming to human health and welfare -- a matter that federal climate experts and international scientists have repeatedly said should be urgently addressed.

The Supreme Court, in a decision 15 months ago that startled the government, ordered the EPA to decide whether human health and welfare are being harmed by greenhouse gas pollution from cars, power plants and other sources, or to provide a good explanation for not doing so. But the administration has opted to postpone action instead ...
[...]
To defer compliance with the Supreme Court's demand, the White House has walked a tortured policy path, editing its officials' congressional testimony, refusing to read documents prepared by career employees and approved by top appointees, requesting changes in computer models to lower estimates of the benefits of curbing carbon dioxide, and pushing narrowly drafted legislation on fuel-economy standards that officials said was meant to sap public interest in wider regulatory action.

The decision to solicit further comment overrides the EPA's written recommendation from December. Officials said a few senior White House officials were unwilling to allow the EPA to state officially that global warming harms human welfare.

And in other situations, don't you wish you could avoid paying federal income taxes by refusing to open the letter sent by the IRS? Or change witnesses testimony with impunity when being sued? Or when the United State Supreme Court orders you to do something, you just pretend you need to think about it and let the clock tick down on your tenure.

In my opinion, this has been one of the most eggregious examples of disreggard for the other two (and under the constitution, co-equal) branches of government by the executive branch--yes, even more eggregious than the White House's War on Terror policies.

The only good news is that no matter who wins in Novemeber, the EPA will be radically different come January 21st, 2009.

The Captain's favorite avoids the plank

Mark Towner, a frequent commenter and author of the Captain's Spyglass, must be dissipointed to learn that the man who sued him all the way to the Utah Supreme Court dodged unrelated criminal charges today.

"I want to emphasize that this is not a verdict of innocence. The defendant is simply not guilty of the crime charged," said Judge L.G. "Buz" Cutler.
Cutler's ruling came after more than four hours of prosecution testimony concerning a criminal trespass charge at GOP headquarters lodged against Ridgway in March 2007. The judge ruled before hearing the testimony of any defense witnesses.
Ridgway had tried to crash an executive committee meeting of Salt Lake County's Republican Party - with a wheelchaired veteran in tow. He was ejected from the building, which serves as headquarters of the state GOP, and arrested. He spent five days in jail. "We've traditionally always had our meetings open," County GOP Chairman James Evans testified. He said he had discretion to close executive committee meetings if someone did or could cause a disruption.
Ridgway, who ran for the party's U.S. Senate nomination in 2006 against Orrin Hatch and was a former central committee member, had already incurred an injunction that forbade him from coming within 20 feet of party activist Mark Towner and his family.

Interestingly, the article fails to include the fact that Ridgway has already served 5 days in jail on the charge. Nor did the article mention that justice court verdicts are not binding at all. Either side can seek a de novo review [basically, you start from scratch] at the District Court level on most matters. Of course, more often than not, people don't bother to "appeal" because of the trivality of outcome--a fine or none, less than a year jail time or none, drug testing or none, etc.

On a more fundamental level however, I have never gotten what Ridgway thought he was accomplishing by all of his various antics. Was the point to embarrass the Utah Republican Party establishment? To endear himself to Utah Democrats? To make some sort of a political or legal statement? If so, what was his statement? Since it is pretty unclear, I think it is safe to say if that was his goal, he didn't accomplish it. Also, I think even he would admit he now has zero chance of ever being a Republican nominee for any office in Utah or to getting any appointed position either. Maybe he is one of those people that gets a rise out of annoying others. Frankly, I don't get it.

Gadflies are supposed to a martyr for a cause other than self promotion of said martyr. This has been true since the days of Socrates. In any event, the whole Ridgway drama has been entertaining to watch as a political junkie, although I am sure it was not nearly as fun for the Towner family. Hopefully this is the last we will ever hear of Mr. Ridgway. I am currious to see what Mark has to say about the whole thing.

making our taxes more regressive

In 2006, Utah had the 8th highest tax burden in the United States (It might have moved down to 12th since then). Not being satisfied with high-taxes in one of, if not the most Republican state in the union, our legislature is contemplating Mike Huckabee's dream: a flat (high) sales taxes to replace all other taxes. It looks like our legislature is trying to make this state another testing ground for conservative ideas that can't gain purchase anywhere else (even after the school voucher debacle).

For 18 years, [Thomas] Wright, former executive director of Texas-based fairtax.org, has spearheaded a national grass-roots effort to shift all federal taxes to a broad sales tax on goods and services.
[...]
Business purchases of goods and services used in operations would be exempt from the consumption tax, which is a kind of sales tax aimed only at the end user.
A legislative working group has analyzed the theory for several months but has yet to formulate a proposal, said Rep. John Dougall, R-Highland, who co-chairs the committee.
And so far, no state has a broad-based consumption tax, said Bryant Howe, assistant director of the Office of Legislative Research and General Counsel.
Howe presented the pros and cons of taxing consumption rather than property and income. While it would encourage savings and investment among wealthy residents, the less-well-off would struggle.

This is a very bad idea policy-wise, for several reasons. First off, the poor and middle-class spend a greater percentage of their total income on things that would be taxes by this super high sales tax than the rich would. For someone like Gov. Huntsman, most of his money is spent buying stocks/bonds and a rather paltry portion is used to buy things like food and gas (especially since he is governor). Not so for 90-something percent of Utahns. So this would be a de facto tax hike on most of us, while an effective tax cut for the rich, whose property taxes and income taxes make up the bulk of their overall state tax liability.

Secondly,

A lone consumption tax would be more volatile, [Mark] Buchi[, a Salt Lake City tax attorney and former state tax commissioner,] said, netting a windfall when consumer spending is high, but starving the government's ability to provide basic services when people tighten their belts.

But hey, we don't have to worry about that right, because the economy is in great shape!...Oh wait, scratch that.

Third, supporters claim it would encourage savings, which in the abstract might sound like a good thing, but it is not necessarily, and there is no guarantee that that would necessarily happen. In Utah, like everywhere else in this country, spending outpaces earnings (in fact, we are near the tops in the nation in bankruptcy filings) and that money, by in large, stimulates the local economy. Think about all of the boat dealers that would go out of business if a high-sales-tax-only policy really caused people to save. Moreover, would the rich be anymore encouraged to save than they were before? As others have pointed out, most of their money is placed into high-yield instruments like stocks and bonds, which offer either no or deferred taxes (and when reckoning day comes, at lower rates than this super sales tax), not a local bank account, which offers practically zero percent interest. The less well off but financially literate, the ones most likely to be encouraged to save other than the rich, would invest their money similarly. Lastly, think about that tax cut simulus you got this spring/summer. Did you use it to spend or to save? Congress and the President thought it would stimulate spending, and the results were pretty minimal (and the rich invested it rather than buying another fur coat or whatever). [The simulus checks were pretty much washed out by the rise in gas prices too, but that's another topic for previous day]

Anyway, our tax code should be going the oposite direction from the way Rep. Dougall is contemplating. We should be eliminating taxes and fees on things that lower- to middle-class folks spend the majority of their money on: food (as apposed to dining out), clothes, fees to use the public pool, buying school supplies/textbooks, etc. And we should be creating progressive tax brackets. Sure maybe it will scare off some of the ultra-wealthy, but we shouldn't get into a race to the bottom.

more fishiness?

On the day that Rep. Mark Walker's resignation conveniently mooted the total solar eclipse that is an ethics committee investigation by the legislature, something else caught my eye. In Iron County, the county which is the birth place of the Matheson clan, one precinct had strangely low turnout, another very high turnout.

Commissioners say the turnout was among the lowest recorded in county history.
According to the county, only about 4 percent voted in Cedar City's Precinct 7. Areas outside the city had a much higher rate of participation. Modena had 50 percent turnout with 15 of the 30 registered voters casting ballots in the June 24 primary. That topped the county.
Cedar City's Precinct 19 has the most registered voters, but only 12.79 percent went to the polls.

Now you might chalk that up to an odd coincidence. But when you put that into context with the massive vote fraud in Daggett County (and the ensuing cover up), ones tin foil hat begins to beckon.

when the rubber meets the roll

(Photo Credit: Michael Bandy, Deseret News)

I used to get annoyed with the "geez, gas prices are so high this summer" stories that happened every year. Every year, politicans tried to pander by either promising to drill our way to low prices (like McCain, Bush and other Republicans in Congress) or getting "tough with Big Oil" by either taxing their winfall profits, or investigating them for illegal business practices that would artifically jack up prices (the Democrats' approach). But since gas has pretty much doubled in the span of two years or so, it really has become an actual problem that is truly hurting lots of individuals and businesses. And not just people who have to drive a lot like FedEx or Meals on Wheels. The high cost of oil (and the supremacy of the Iowa Caucuses) has lead to increasing use of Ethenol, which means less grains to feed animals and people with, and therefore higher priced grains.

Case in point: my (and Gov. Huntsman's family's) favorite brunch spot, Avenues Bakery.

The South Temple bakery, a few doors down from the Governor's Mansion and frequented by city officials, politicians and neighbors alike, has notified customers it won't do business at its current location after July 20.
[...]
The 5-year-old business is coping with skyrocketing wheat and egg prices, and it no longer can afford rent that the owners say was exorbitant to begin with — nearly $11,000 a month.

"This is the full picture of what food prices have done," Chadbourne said.

The situation has apparently shocked several customers, and some are even calling the landlord, the couple said. One of those callers will be Salt Lake economic development director Bob Farrington.

Farrington hopes to help keep the business there. He wants to bring about a resolution between the bakery and landlord, he told the Deseret News last week. If he can't, he hopes to look at zoning issues affecting the move.

"I think there's been a good popular response to their predicament," Farrington said, adding that a survey showed residents most cherish locally owned businesses, of which the bakery is "a poster child."
[...]
Some foods went up. Milk jumped 4 percent for the month to hit the baseline price of $2.69 a gallon recorded in April. Eggs went up 30 percent in the past month to $1.63 a dozen, but they are 15 percent cheaper than they were in April. Cheerios are up 4.5 percent, and bananas jumped 6 percent for the month and since April.

Gas prices had the biggest increase — up 4 percent for the month to $4.02 a gallon. That's a 25.6 percent increase since April, when a gallon of gas cost $3.20. The prices are affecting Utahns, who are coming in droves to participate in Crossroads Urban Center's Community Food Co-op of Utah. The co-op buys food collectively at wholesale prices, providing an array of healthful food for about half the price.

The co-op now counts close to 6,000 members, up by 1,000 since late April, assistant director Bill Germundson said. The co-op has added four new distribution teams in communities from Kearns to Ogden in the past month.

"Word is getting out," Germundson said. "Gas prices are hitting home to people. That affects the food prices. We're at the right time and the right place for growth."

Anyone can join the co-op. They're just asked to perform two hours of community service each month for participating.

My wife's dreams of walking down with our baby down to Avenues Bakery for brunch...but he won't be here until September. Hopefully, something can get worked out so that the bakery can stay. Just in case though, you will find me there eating brunch this weekend.

charging document

The Declaration we remember is the flowery language of Thomas Jefferson, which tweaked John Locke's Two Treatises of Government to give us "the pursuit of Happiness" instead of Locke's Natural Right of private property. This is mainly due to Abraham Lincoln, who resurrected the beloved Declaration for authority to free slaves.

But the part that Jefferson, Adams, and the rest that risked their lives by signing important was the latter part of the document, which I quote now and will examine below. It in you see origins of the rights of the people/limitations on the federal government that became incorporated into our Constitution 11 years later:

The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

From this we got in the Constitution (in no particular order):

1. The Rule of Law over the Rule of Men.
2. The Congress (and the states) being co-equal (if not superior to in some matters) to the President
3. An independent Judiciary, with lifetime appointments and no ability of the Congress or the President to lower their salaries.
4. Regularly scheduled elections and terms of office.
5. Requiring Congress approve continuing to have armed forces in times of peace
6. the Third Amendment
7. The trial rights in a criminal trial to a impartial jury, the right to confrontation of witnesses against the accused, the right to jury for civil trials if exceeding a certain dollar amount, etc. found in the Sixth Amendment, Habeas Corpus Clause, and so on.
8. Taxes must be first introduced and passed in the most democratic chamber of Congress--the House of Representatives--in order to become law
9. Giving Congress, not the President (or the states) the power over commerce--and giving power to grant copyright.
10. The concept of personal and subject matter jurisdiction (and an independent judiciary) to insure that the accused would be tried in an apt venue with some basic rules of fairness
11. Giving Congress the power over matters of naturalization, not the President
12. And but not least, the right oto petition the government for a redress of grievances found in the First Amendment

Have a fun filled and safe Fourth!

in hindsight

Since tomorrow is July 4th, the day Americans celebrate our nationhood, I thought I would give you this historic gem (tomorrow I will quote from the Declaration itself).

On this day in 1776, John Adams, wrote to his wife Abigail:

The second day of July 1776 will be the most memorable epocha in this history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It out be commemorated as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Alighty. It out to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other from this time forward forever more.

Incidentally, it was July 2nd, not July 4th that the Continental Congress voted in favor of the Declaration of Independence. It merely took two days for them to write it down neatly on nice parchment paper and get around to signing it (individually, not like this famous painting in the U.S. Capitol).

Anyway, my point was supposed to be that Adams accurately predicted what our national holiday would become: a mix of parades, fairs, baseball games, fireworks, family BBQ's, and reverence of God. The only thing he got wrong was the date, which was understandable given what I just explained above.

Happy July 3rd everybody!

Huntsman hints at Walker's corruption

The Deseret News thought the lead was that Gov. Huntsman was not concerned that Rep. Walker's alleged unethical/illegal activities might drag down the Utah GOP brand. But I found this quote far more illuminating:

"I don't think it's bad for the party," the governor said of the investigations. "Sometimes when there's smoke, there might even be fire. When people sense something may have went on during the election, they want to get to the bottom of it."

Is there something the Governor knows that he isn't sharing with us? Like the name of that legislator which has thus far remained unanimous anonymous in the ethics complaint? Or what really went down? [Thanks Mark for that catch]

Since Walker's political career is pretty much done now, will he try to drag someone else down with him? Or multiple persons? If so, Huntsman's nonchalance might have been misplaced.

the right to make stuff up?

Free speech. Despite popular belief, the First Amendment doesn't allow the speaker to say anything with impunity. Justice Holmes put it best when he wrote, "The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man falsely shouting fire in a theater and causing a panic." Schenck v. United States, 249 U.S. 47, 52 (1919). Yet corporatations and their voucher supporting front groups continue to believe otherwise.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc., aired television and radio ads during last year's voucher referendum process, offering free legal services to anyone who was illegally coerced into signing petitions supporting the referendum. However, they led the ads with statements that showed they supported the voucher law and were against the effort to overturn it through a ballot question.
State law says that anyone who influences voters must file a disclosure of funds used to do so. The group did not file, and when informed of the need to do so, it refused, arguing that Utah's law is too vague and inhibits free political speech.
"That would make everything campaign-related then, including conversations . . . about political issues," argued James Bopp Jr., who represented the foundation. He said if the ads had clearly told voters to vote for or against vouchers, the foundation would have disclosed its funding.

Bopp has repeatedly attempted to argue that financial disclosure rules in campaign finance laws are somehow unconstitutional. Yet, repeatedly, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to agree (well, they never addressed it even though Bopp brought it up). In fact, Bopp won Wisconsin Right to Life v. FEC (WRTL II) just last year and his allies won Davis v. FEC a few days ago, both time the court struck down portions of McCain-Feingold/BCRA/McConnell v. FEC (the blackout period for WRTL II and the Millioniare's Amendment for Davis), but not the statute's disclosure requirements.

I have met Bopp and he is, to put it gently, an overly zealous and unnecessarily rude advocate for his cause. He worked for Romney over McCain in the primary. And this case, while full of crap (According to Bopp, requiring disclosure for political TV ads means that you can't speak in public about politics without filing with the LG? Come on!), deserves a close watching. Clearly, it is Bopp's plan to take this baby all the way up to the Supremes. And this time, give corporations and their laykeys the right under the First Amendment to say one thing in an attack ad, without the public knowing who is bankrolling a group such as "Americans for Nuclear Waste Fuel Storage" ... Or "The National Right to Work Legal Defense and Education Foundation, Inc.," a anti-labor pro-voucher group.

back-door vouchers?

Utahns from every county voted down vouchers, and the overall vote was overwhelming against vouchers. Yet the legislature seems to have found another way to resurect this zombie policy idea.

As the Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship program continues to grow, seven more private schools have become eligible to accept students using the scholarship for the 2008-09 school year.
[...]
The Carson Smith Special Needs Scholarship, which was signed into law by Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. in 2005, provides a state-funded voucher to K-12 students with disabilities.

In the 2007-08 school year, 514 students received Carson Smith Scholarships. This number continues to increase every year as more parents of children with disabilities learn that education options exist to meet their children's unique needs, PCE officials say.
[...]
Kristi Saunders, PCE's Carson Smith outreach coordinator, helps parents and schools navigate the application process. "As a mother of a special needs child, it's rewarding to see parents ecstatic because their children's needs are being met, thanks to the Carson Smith scholarship," Saunders said.

Parents can apply for the a scholarship throughout the school year, but to receive the full amount for the 2008-09 school year, applications must be submitted by Tuesday.

For information, contact PCE at 532-1448 or go to www.CarsonSmithScholarship.org

So the group that bankrolled the pro-voucher movement, giving money campaign contributions to legislators and funding for TV ads and mailers in favor of vouchers last year basically wrote this article about the Carson Smith vouchers scholarships. The whole thing reminds me of Creationism and the debate over evolution, or privatizing Social Security. The anti-evolution groups would keep changing the name of what they were proposing, but the idea was the same. Ditto for those who wanted to phase out Social Security with a privately-funded version.

Sure, these "scholarships" might be limited to those who can recieve them. But the idea--that public education can be phased out in favor of cutting parents a check for them to purchase education in a private marketplace--remains the same. Even that the same characters are pushing the "scholarship" as a sucess story as were pushing for state-wide universal vouchers, we should expect that PCE and their allies in the legislature will point to these scholarship students as proof that vouchers "work." They will then revive the issue with Utah voters.

All of which is fine, but I think the public needs to be aware that something they disapprove of is being done in an essentially "pilot" fashion and will be brought up again and again.

feeling Minnesota

I got up feeling so down
I got off being sold out
Ive kept the movie rolling
But the storys getting old now
I just looked in the mirror
Things arent looking so good
Im looking california
And feeling minnesota
--"Outshined," Soundgarden

No, I am not watching the Keanu Reeves movie. Sorry for not posting yesterday...I am in Minneapolis for the weekend for a family reunion. Enjoy the weekend, the music video (and the 90's nostalgia):

Change IS coming to Utah

Despite abysmal turnout, there were two four upsets last night in the GOP primaries. And not just sweakers but blow-outs for the challenger to the status quo.

"We rocked the vote here in Utah and we rocked the Republican Party," Chaffetz told about 175 supporters gathered to celebrate the victory. "I think we've been given a mandate to return the Republican Party to its core conservative principles."
With 99 percent of the votes counted, Chaffetz led Cannon by about 20 points.
[...]
Chaffetz hammered away at Cannon, running a relentless campaign targeting Congress' failure to control government spending, fix immigration and energy policies, and vowing to eliminate the federal government's role in public education.
"The Republican Party is broken and I want to fix it," said Chaffetz, as his supporters celebrated, drinking apple beer at a gathering in Springville.

Wow, I had predicted for about a year now that Rep. Cannon would face a much stiffer challenge this year than last time (as Republicans smelled blood in the water) and that the ex-BYU kicker would have the best shot at doing so. This is now Jon Huntsman's party (Chaffetz was the Governor's chief of staff), not the brothers Cannon's.

But the best result was really the drubbing that Rep. Mark Walker took by Deputy Treasurer Richard Ellis. When I heard this piece of news this morning driving into work, I laughed out loud. What a profile in courage.

Lt. Governor Gary Herbert waited until the polls closed Tuesday to announce that he would forward state treasurer candidate Richard Ellis' complaint to the Attorney General's office for investigation.

But wait that's not all. As I predicted, more incumbents fell in the GOP primaries.

With half of Weber County's House District 7 vote in, it appears that newcomer Ryan Wilcox will show four-term incumbent Glenn Donnelson the exit.
[...]
Donnelson refused to debate Wilcox and Weber County GOP Chair Matt Bell decided to host an event anyway - even after state Republican Party leaders cautioned him against the practice of having incumbents debate their intra-party challengers.
Donnelson, during his years in the Legislature, has focused heavily on illegal immigration. However, Wilcox called Donnelson out of touch with the district's voters. Wilcox surveyed voters and found that energy prices and taxes were at the top of their list, not immigration.

And one more for the road:

Challenger Becky Edwards has toppled Rep. Paul Neuenschwander in southern Davis County's District 20 GOP primary.
[...]
Edwards said Neuenschwander's support of school vouchers showed he did not represent the interest of voters in his district. She also questioned him voting for an omnibus education bill.
Neuenschwander questioned whether Edwards was a true Republican and hammered her for voting in the Democratic presidential primary in March.
Edwards is the daughter-in-law of former Brigham Young football coach LaVell Edwards.

So there you have it, high turnout in the Presidential primary in February (thanks Mitt!) but low turnout in June in the GOP primary. Yet four encumbents/establishment favorites went down (one open seat establishment favorite won) the voters of Utah want change in the status quo, whether or not LG Herbert or his buddy AG Shurtleff wants it.

P.S. Hopefully Shurtleff gets better and they get rid of that nasty infection.

moral relativism

(Official Portrait of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, taken January 28, 1976. Courtesy of Wikipedia/Library of Congress)

"...under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, criminal laws in this area are constitutionally limited to hard core p[0]rn[0]graphy. I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description, and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that." Jacobellis v. Ohio, 378 U.S. 184, 197 (1964) (Stewart, J., concurring) (emphasis added).

[Ed.--As you have probably noticed, certain "o"s have been replaced with zeros {0} to avoid a negative rating and to keep this site out of unwanted search results, but the human brain will easily dor the necessary corrections]

I linked to this New York Times story on my sidebar, but it merits more examination.

In a novel approach, the defense in an obscenity trial in Florida plans to use publicly accessible Google search data to try to persuade jurors that their neighbors have broader interests than they might have thought.

In the trial of a p[0]rn[0]graphic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like "[0]rgy" than for "apple pie" or "watermelon." The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.

Does something stop being obscene because lots of people look for it online? One of my favorite plays has a song which suggests that the true purpose of the Internet is to find the kind of material this operator provided. One could argue that the fact that such material is widely viewed means that lots of people secretly like to look at this stuff, not that they don't find it obscene. In fact, it is arguably because it is taboo that they want to find it.

“Time and time again you’ll have jurors sitting on a jury panel who will condemn material that they routinely consume in private,” said Mr. Walters, the defense lawyer. Using the Internet data, “we can show how people really think and feel and act in their own homes, which, parenthetically, is where this material was intended to be viewed,” he added.

Like hypocrisy has ever stopped people from condemning those who are no worse than them. Maybe in the near future defense attorneys will try to use jurors', prosecutors', and witnesses' web viewing habits against them. Publicity wise, I am sure Google is none too pleased to have its search engine used in this fashion.

The defense attorneys in this case are banking on the argument that the "contemporary community standards" of decency have sufficiently evolved to become more accepting of such explicit material. So is the Internet defining decency down? Or are tools like Google Trends just revealing people's true levels of decency?

the end of sprawl?

(Copywright © 2007 DWRowan)

Some might not like the Downtown Rising or City Creek Center developements taking place downtown. But don't count me among them for this reason:

Planners predicted it, but not this way - not this fast. Yet new urbanism - punctuated by a rush on downtown Salt Lake City - is sweeping a swath of northern Utah, a place long defined by suburban flight.
A new report reveals residential building permits in the south-valley boomtowns plunged 80 percent since last year. By contrast, the capital saw permits skyrocket to 194 this year from 13 in the first quarter of 2007.

Not that I have anything specifically against West Jordan, Draper et al. I just don't think it is wise to keep building little subdivisions and roads and houses etc. and then be surprised when there is smog, traffic, high property taxes, and nothing but chain box stores and McMansions in sight.

My wife and I could have bought a much bigger house in a suburb, but we chose to live in the Avenues because it is close (10 minutes) to downtown and the University. I would rather spend more time with my family in a smaller house than sit in traffic and get stressed out in a commute. And with gas above $4 a gallon with no sight of retreat, the mortgage bubble bursting, TRAX and FrontRunner, the LDS church's downtown development which will bring grocery stores, shopping, housing, and office space all close together, people don't have to live on 90 million south and 20 million west anymore.

Just drive around Salt Lake and even Sandy and you will see that condos are popping up like wildflowers all over the place. Has the culture changed such that people are more interested in Quality of Life than Quantity of Life? Have Utahns grown tired of keeping up with the Jensens (our version of the Joneses)? Only time will tell. But I am optimistic that the capital city will become a true urban space that will recast its image around the world as not just "where the Mormon church is" but as Mayor Becker called it a great American city.

trying to make news

There are things happening in Utah...really there are. Yet one of the more annoying trends in local news coverage is to take a national story and ask some dude in Utah what he thinks about it. First off, how is this news? A poll might be news, but the way these "man on the street" interviews are picked are not representative, and thus do not tell us anything more than what some dude thinks. And really, if I wanted to know that, I could walk up to the water cooler, or the gym, or the sports bar. At least when "Jay Walking" does the same thing is at least mildly funny/depressing. But it only shows how stupid the people who the Tonight Show editors pick are.

Golf: Locals mixed on Woods' surgery
By Jay Drew
The Salt Lake Tribune
Posted: 9:35 AM- Several recreational golfers making the turn at Salt Lake City's Wingpointe Golf Course late Wednesday morning saw and heard the news for the first time.
"Tiger Woods will undergo season-ending knee surgery" rolled across the bottom of the clubhouse television screen, drawing a gasp or a "I'm not surprised" from almost every golfer who noticed.

I won't quote further since that would infringe on Jay's golf outing that he managed to turn into a "story" by sitting on his duff and letting a bunch of white dudes ramble on while the tape recorder runs.

In fact, by writing this post, I have already put more effort and words into this story than Jay did. And I didn't even get paid. Have a great weekend everyone!

Judge for yourself

The front page of the Salt Lake Tribune screams "E-mail backs Ellis' claim that Walker offered job to get him out of race" Let's see if we can cobble together the email, since the Trib didn't bother to post the message in its entirety. Carl Empey, vice-president of public finance for Zions Bank, who was the go-between for the purported offer by Rep. Walker to Ellis for a job. Rep. Walker has claimed that there was some confusion of what he said, and that he didn't do anything illegal. Au contrare, wrote Empey to LG Gary Herbert on June 2nd:

"Mr. Walker came up and visited with me on many occasions and discussed the idea, the salary amount and asked me to pass it along to Mr. Ellis for his consideration," Empey wrote.
The current state treasurer, Ed Alter, makes $104,000 a year. The alleged job offer, according to Ellis and Empey, was $160,000.
"It wasn't until March 17 that Mr. Ellis and myself became aware that this activity was improper under state statute," Empey continued in the lengthy e-mail.
"At that point, Mr. Ellis stopped the consideration and discussions and decided to run and not withdraw from the election."
[...]
In the e-mail, Empey wrote that he was willing to risk everything, including his job, to defend Ellis' integrity.
[Steve] Hunter[, Walker's campaign manager,] believes his e-mail does the opposite.
"These guys are toast. What it does is incriminate Richard Ellis and Carl Empey," Hunter said. "They were complicit in a job offer and soliciting a job offer - both are illegal under state law."

Wait, let me get this straight, now the Walker campaign's line is that Ellis is just as guilty as Walker in offering and contemplating a higher paying job in exchange for dropping out of a political race? Because I don't get how this logic would allow for Ellis and Empey to be guilty without necessarily implicating Walker. After all, even if Ellis via Empey was guilty of the crime of soliciting a bribe, isn't Walker equally guilty of the crime of offering a bribe to Ellis? Or is Hunter claiming Ellis via Empey asked for a higher paying job for Ellis in exchange for Ellis withdrawing from the primary, and Walker refused? If so, I have yet to see any evidence offered to support that claim. Did Walker submit a self-serving affidavit to the Utah Supreme Court? I would think a contemporaneously written email would be much more reliable...although this email was written two weeks after the purported bribe was made. All in all, this email doesn't do much in the way of bolstering Ellis' case, but it sure doesn't undermine it or incriminate him, nor does it exonerate Walker. What do you make of it?

ethics are coming to Utah's legislature

...whether they like it or not.

A group of legislators — moderate Republicans and Democrats — would like to see lawmakers do something about their own ethics, specifically personal use of campaign funds and taking of lobbyists' gifts.
Two bill files have already been opened for the 2009 Legislature — one by Rep. Steve Mascaro, R-West Jordan, and one by Sen. Pat Jones, D-Holladay.

"I want transparency, both in campaign spending and gift-taking," said Mascaro, who added he didn't run so-called ethics reform bills the past two years after "certain members of (House GOP) leadership asked me not to."

But after the House moved "back to the same old mind-set — where Republican leaders took over the final weeks of the (2008) Legislature and just did what they wanted" with little concern for other GOP members of the 55-person House Republican caucus, "I decided to go ahead this year" with ethics reform, Mascaro said.

You can either get in ahead of the train, or wait until the train is practically on top of you, because common sense ethics laws are going to come into effect.

Utah has some of the most liberal campaign, conflict-of-interest and lobbyist gift-giving laws in the United States. Legislators and candidates can take any amount of money from anyone, can spend their campaign accounts anyway they wish — even giving themselves cash — can vote on any bill, even those with clear conflicts of interest, and can take any "intangible" gift from a lobbyist.
[...]
But over time lobbyists, who now report their own gift-giving, have found creative ways around the by-name legislative reporting. Each year the 104 lawmakers take around $200,000 worth of gifts from lobbyists, reports show. But less than 20 percent of that money comes with a legislator's name attached.

I wouldn't use the word 'liberal' (used here to mean generous) when it comes to ethics laws in Utah, I would use the word 'non-existant.'

According to the article, there may be somewhere between 15 and 20 Republicans in the Utah House who are willing to join up with the 17 Democrats in that body to pass some reforms. 38 votes--and having their bills get out of committee and calendared properly--are required to pass any bill.

And here is my favorite line of the whole article:

"There are some good things that are happening up there (in the Legislature). Not all of us are idiots," said Mascaro.

making money off racism

First, there was the sock monkey dressed in a suit that was marketed as resembling Obama.

Well, actually before that there was the Curious George t-shirt.
Now there is another...and third.

But now there are buttons that Texas Republican Party Convention goers can buy.

Either these people who make/sell these items are too ignorant to get that this is deeply offensive, or they see another chance to make a buck off racists. Last time I checked though, I didn't hear anything about these folks contemplating donating the profits to the NAACP or anything like that.