Archive for: February 2006

It looks like I may finally be voting for a winner. According to a recent poll,

The Mobile Register-University of South Alabama statewide poll shows the Republican governor leading Lt. Gov. Lucy Baxley by 9 percentage points and burying former Gov. Don Siegelman by more than 25 points.

Beating Baxley with 9 points is really not that amazing, considering Riley is an incumbent just coming off his State of the State address. There’s also a lot of news about the surplus that have people happy with current administrators. BUT, I still think we’ll have our first re-elected governor since 1993 (if you count Guy Hunt).

I’m still working on it a little (and I still have no time). I’m also trying to find a script that will convert all of my old entries (from greymatter) to my new Wordpress files.

Unfortunately, there will be little to no posting until later this week. I have a busy couple of days ahead, but I should be back in full swing by Wednesday or Thursday. Sorry to the fans. Ha ha.

You’ve gotta love it when a federal Judicial opinion has a serious reference to Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery. The opinion is here. Look for the footnotes in page 16. It’s a little difficult to read out of context, but here it is for those who just want the good stuff:

[C]ounsel spoke of such sophisticated planning that it believes is required under our case law that, in my opinion, only two types of criminals would be able to benefit from it: (1) perhaps a white collar criminal who keeps detailed records of the entire plan or (2) the James Bond movie villain, who prior to carrying out some grand scheme of world domination/annihilation, feels compelled to explain to anyone who will listen and in great detail (with intermittent villainous guffaws), each of the steps necessary to achieve his plan.1…[footnote]

1 - See also Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (New Line Cinema 1997).
DR. EVIL: Scott, I want you to meet Daddy’s nemesis, Austin Powers.
SCOTT EVIL: Why are you feeding him? Why don’t you just kill him?
DR. EVIL: In due time.
SCOTT EVIL: But what if he escapes? Why don’t you just shoot him? What are you waiting for?
DR. EVIL: I have a better idea. I’m going to put him in an easily-escapable situation involving an overly-elaborate and exotic death.
SCOTT EVIL: Why don’t you just shoot him now? Here, I’ll get a gun. We’ll just shoot him. Bang! Dead. Done.
DR. EVIL: One more peep out of you and you’re grounded. Let’s begin.
Prior to this exchange and then again following it, Dr. Evil describes in great detail the separate crimes
necessary to achieve his plan for world domination. Thus, if our Government ever does find Dr. Evil (or chooses to prosecute him despite his recent decision to be “less evil,” see Austin Powers in Goldmember (New Line Cinema 2002)), he will be one of the few, if any, criminal defendants, able to argue, consistent with this Circuit’s precedent, that all of his various crimes were “related” for purposes of the Guidelines.

…[later]

With these observations, I concur in the Court’s opinion.

Maybe no one else thinks this is funny, but it had me rolling.

I’m not going to comment on it, but here’s the deal. A blogger filed an FOIA request and got a DoD staffer’s hand-written notes on the afternoon of September 11, 2001. They include an instruction made by Rumsfield to General Myers (Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff) during a 2:40PM meeting to find the, “[b]est info fast . . . judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [Saddam Hussein] at same time - not only UBL [Usama Bin Laden]”

I’m not going to say anything, go check it out for yoursef.

And the FBI is right. The L.A. Times reports (ripped from Andrew Sullivan) on their analysis of the latest documents released about Gitmo:

The documents suggest that harsh interrogation methods were approved of and encouraged by high-ranking Pentagon officials and commanders. In an internal FBI memo dated May 2004, an unidentified bureau official complained that Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s public pronouncements about interrogation policies were misleading.“I know these techniques were approved at high levels within DoD and used” on specific prisoners, said the official, referring to the Department of Defense.

Not that they’re just now getting recognized for their accomplishments, but 63 former Tuskegee Airmen were awarded honorary degrees from Tuskegee University yesterday. The all-black 99th Fighter Squadron were nicknamed the Tuskegee Airmen because they were located at Tuskegee Army Air Field in Alabama. They also were orginally housed at the Tuskegee Inistitute (now Tuskegee University). Although the squadron was originally dismissed by Washington (black people are too slow to fly airplanes, so they said), their group commanding officer, Colonel Parrish (white guy) petitioned for the squadron to be given a combat role. They eventually became big enough to be a group (of 3 squadrons) known as the 332nd. Here’s how those black fellows showed they were smart enough to fly airplanes:

•They never lost a single bomber they were escorting
•400 enemy aircraft shot down
•Destroyed an enemy destroyer with only machine gun fire
•Two Presidential Unit Citations
•744 Air Medals
•150 Distinguished Flying Crosses
•14 Bronze Stars
•Several silver stars

Despite this, there is one famous incident where 100 Tuskegee officers tried to enter an officer’s mess in the United States. They were refused and all of them were given an official reprimand from the U.S. Army.

The Senate Committee on Finance and Taxation Educations unanimously approved a raise for state public school employees and retirees.

The raise would provide 5 percent to public school employees from kindergarten through junior college level and 7 percent to education retirees.

It now goes to the full Senate where it is expected to pass. It was already approved by the House, so it should go through.

It smells like an election year… not that I have a problem with paying teachers more. Maybe we should hold an election every six months.

SB52 is the bill that passed the Alabama Senate Committee on Constitution, Campaign Finance, Ethics, and Elections. It must now be passed by the full Senate, then it goes to the House. If the identical bill (without changes) is passed by both the Senate and the House, it goes on the ballot for the November 7, 2006 election. This is the same day as the general election, and the ballot will read:

Do you favor the holding of a constitutional convention for the purpose of revising the Constitution of Alabama of 1901?
Yes ( ) No ( )

If majority of voters check “yes,” then the bill will be enacted. I know most people don’t like reading bills, so here’s the gist of what happens if we decide to hold a Constitutional Convention:

Election of Delegates
•A delegate-candidate must file with the Secretary of State, and must pay a $50 fee
•A delegate-candidate can’t accept more than $100 from any source as a campaign contribution
•A delegate-candidate can spend as much of his/her own money as he/she wants on his/her campaign
•The election of delegates must be non-partisian
•The election of delegates will take place April 3, 2007
•Two delegates will be elected from each state House district– one male and one female (kinda weird)
•Delegates must be 21, a qualified elector (able to vote), a citizen of Alabama for 3 years, and a resident of Alabama for 1 year. The delegate must live in the district he/she is representing
•Each delegate will receive the same pay and compensation as the members of the Alabama legislature
•The delegates will first meet on July 6, 2007 The Convention itself
•Each delegate must take the following oath:

“I do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States, and I will honestly and faithfully perform the duties as a delegate of this convention, so help me God.”

•The most senior judge of the Alabama Supreme Court will preside over the first meeting until a President is elected by the delegates
•The Convention has until May 1, 2008 to come up with a Constitution or the deal is off. Everyone goes home and we keep the old Constitution of 1901.

After the Convention
•The potential Constitution will be put on the ballot for the 2008 general election, to be voted on by the citizens of Alabama
•If a majority of voters approved the Constitution, it goes into effect on January 1, 2009

Let’s think about what the South Dakota legislator has done by passing a law banning abortions. If it goes to the Supreme Court, the best they can hope for is a 5-4 ruling against the bill. More likely, it will be struck down by a lower federal court and the Supreme Court will refuse to hear it.

Let’s talk about what this is really all about - Elections. All of the legislators are up for re-election in 2006. The final roll call in the Senate was 23 yea, 12 nay (no abstains or absenses). There are 10 Democrats in the South Dakota legislator (who no doubt have to worry about being considered liberal). Six of them voted for it.

If you live in northeastern Birmingham, you probably know that Eastwood Mall is pretty much all gone. Bernard Kincaid wants a Wal-Mart supercenter to go there, and he thinks the city’s taxpayers should pay Wal-Mart $11 million to do it. This means the city taxpayers (which includes non-residents who shop there) will be paying over half of the $21 million purchase.

The city council listened to the argument and delayed taking action today. They are expected to approve the spending, and Jesus wept.

Lee P over at A Bama Blog believes the state should ban this type of corporate welfare, and I agree. Wal-Marts saw a 13.6% increase in profits last quarter. They don’t need the money. If they want to move to the Eastwood Mall location, let them look at cost and possible revenue and make a business decision. To date, Wal Mart has received more than $1 billion in subsidies from state and local governments. I wonder why we can’t lift the tax threshold for a family of four above $4600 in Alabama.

To be fair to Wal Mart, they’re not the only ones. Although I don’t have any data on the state’s budget for corporate welfare, the federal governemnt spent about $87 billion in direct subsidies to private companies in 2001, according to a Cato Institute report.

But I’m going to defend Troy King a bit. Rev. James Henderson, head of the Alabama Alliance Against Abortion, held a press conference outside of the state house and said Troy King was soft on sex offenders. I would call King an idiot when it comes to sex offenders, but I certainly wouldn’t call him “soft.” Maybe impotent, maybe ridiculously theatrical, but not soft.

This Henderson fellow thinks that all women under the age of 16 who seek an abortion are automatically victims of a sex crime. He says the abortion clinics are violating law when they don’t release the information about these abortions because they are protecting child sex offenders. Actually, the clinics are restricted by law in how much information they can release.

Abortion news makes me laugh.

It turns out that SB52, which allows the people of Alabama to vote on whether or not to have a Constitutional Convention, was not given the thumbs up by Senator Curt Lee, who represents my area. Although he is on the Committee that approved the legislation Tuesday, he did not vote.

Unfortunately, I can’t write him a letter to say I won’t be voting for him in November. He’s not running for re-election because of his little scandal.

Senator Bradley Byrne’s (R) legislation, SB11, to require schools to start the morning with the pledge of allegiance passed the Senate Wednesday 28-0.

The Act will remove language in the Code of Alabama that requires schools to “allow” students to recite the pledge. Now, it is required:

The teacher and students in each classroom in each public elementary and secondary school shall begin each school day by reciting aloud the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America.

It does have some exceptions. For instance, it doesn’t require non-U.S. citizens to recite the pledge. You can also “opt-out” of mandatory patriotism, but you have to have your parents sign a written request. If you’re a teacher, you don’t need your parents to sign it– you can sign it yourself. How nice of them to not treat everyone like children.

It turns out that the fire at the Christian warehouse was accidental not not arson. Of course it has been deemed unrelated to the string of church fires for a while now.

So I thought it’d be fun to see how much the national debt has increased since Bush took office. To be fair, he’s had help from Congress. According to the Bureau of the Public Debt, our debt today is $8,247,922,679,905.99. When Bush first took office, the debt was $5,727,776,738,304.64. Using a handy calculator, that means his contribution to our debt is $2,520,145,941,601.35. I thought it would be fun to compare this with previous presidents. To be fair, I have included the percent increase or decrease from when they took office. Everything after Clinton is rounded to the million and averaged for the year they took and left office.

Presidential Contributions to the National Debt
{{customten}}Well, I guess he’s no Reagan or Roosevelt. He does have another two years to go, though.

The Washington-based Center of Budget and Policy Priorities apparently thought they were telling us something we didn’t already know by releasing a report showing that a family of four in Alabama has to start paying state income taxes with an annual income of $4600. The federal tax threshold for a family of four is $19,961.

Alabama Arise is backing several bills which will essentially raise the tax threshold to the federal level and makes the richest Alabamians make up the difference. In HB291, they want to remove the federal tax deduction for Alabama tax returns. This will cost about 130,000 Alabamians $230 million. This money will go to relieve the tax burden of the state’s other 1.1 million taxpayers. This is all according to Alabama Arise’s estimates.

Governor Bob Riley opposes the plan. He’s been here before and would like an across-the-board tax cut for all Alabamians. The lost revenue will be made up with the surplus in the Education Trust Fund. So basically the surplus will go away. AEA obviously doesn’t like the governor’s plan, and neither does Alabama Arise.

Unforutnately, the only way for a truely just tax system is for the richer people to pay a higher percentage than the poorer people. I don’t care how this is accomplished. Currently, the richest 1% of Alabama’s millionares pay about an effective tax rate of 4% of their annual income. The poorest 20% pay about 11% of their income.

The IRS says they have $42.5 million that belongs to Alabama’s income tax taxpayers. All of this is belongs to 27,000 Alabamians who need to file a tax return for 2002 in order to receive their money.

If they don’t claim it by April 17, the money will be given to the U.S. Treasury. The federal government IS really in debt ($8,247,922,679,905.99 and counting), but I still say get your money if you didn’t file a return in 2002.