Archive for: November 2006

The X is going away? According to NBC13, WRAX-FM, the alternative rock station in Birmingham, is permanently closed as of Wednesday at 5pm. I don’t listen to it as much as I did when I was in high school, but I’m shocked.

I’ve always thought they should get over their obsession with 1990s-style pop bands like Oasis and Sister Hazel, but they’re the only station I know of that provides their type of alternative rock music. Now I’m going to be limited to classic rock, oldies and country music. Actually… I’ve become an old man since high school — these days you can usually see me jamming in my car to All Things Considered on NPR.

Because of our Alabama Constitution of 1901, citizens across the state voted whether or not the city of Prichard in Mobile County could set up a foreign trade zone to attract capital investment. I voted for the amendment despite the fact that I don’t live in Prichard, have never visited Prichard, had never even heard of Prichard before I read about the amendment.

I voted for it because I believed the people of Prichard and Mobile County supported it, and I wanted to counteract all the jackasses in this state who vote “no” to amendments they don’t understand. It looks like I had the right approach. Ed Packard at the Secretary of State’s office is saying the amendment seems to have failed by a margin low enough to initiate an automatic recount.

Secreatary of State Nancy Worley (D) says she will finish her term before being replaced by Beth Chapman (R), who beat her in the general election. Some newspapers and bloggers have been calling for her to resign in shame before her term expires on January 15.

Anyone who comes here knows I am not a fan of Nancy Worley, but this is starting to get a little ridiculous. We’re talking about a month and a half, and it’s after an election. The only thing a resignation would do in this point is satisfy our righteous indignation. I try to be a little more pragmatic — my satisfaction was provided at the ballot box. Chapman agrees with me.

“I have respect for the office and for the people who put all of us in office. She was put in office by the people to serve a full four-year term,” Chapman said.

There was a time when I thought she should be removed from office (and if it wasn’t an elected office, she might have been). But she’s an elected official, and she’s in lame duck status at this point. We got our way and she’s leaving in January. It’s okay to leave her alone now.

Sounds like a nice name, doesn’t it? The commission was created by Gov. Riley in 2005 to make recommendations about improving education in Alabama. They just released their first report. Their ideas include:

• Create programs to encourage more high school graduates to enter the profession
• More classroom time for student teachers
• Tracking the success of recent graduates
• Incentive pay for teachers to locate to poorer schools

I’m glad some ideas are being thrown around, but the real test will be to see if Gov. Riley has a true improvement in education in Alabama before his term ends. I’m not asking for anything drastic — this is going to be a long-term investment. But I at least want a plan that is showing signs of success.

Governor Riley spent a lot of the election talking up his education record. His main “accomplishment” seems to be introducing videoconferenced lectures so that quality teachers can be brought to poor schools. I’m sorry, but I just don’t see that as a workable alternative.

But it does seem to indicate that the governor realizes that Alabama isn’t without quality education. It’s just without quality education in certain geographic areas that aren’t located around the white kids with above-average incomes. I’m not asking for downtown Birmingham to have their own Hoover High School, but it would be nice if they had schools which could provide a decent education.

I think every editorial board in Alabama that has commented on Troy King’s latest controversy are in agreement that the attorney general was wrong. The responses range from, “A really bad judgement call,” to calling for an independent investigation.

The links should take you to the editorial.

The Birmingham News calls it “a really bad judgement call.”

The Decatur Daily says it was a “lapse that undermines public trust.”

The Tuscaloosa News is calling on the governor to initiate an investigation.

The Huntsville Times comments that King would be fired in the private sector.

The Daily Home says King isn’t going far enough to recognize and fix his failure.

The Mongtomery Advertiser is extremely critical and calls it “appalling.”

From that list, the Huntsville Times was the only paper to endorse Troy King in the last election. Of course, they were also the only daily paper in the state to endorse Troy King, so take that for what it’s worth.

• Heartfelt H/T to G’s Daily Digests at Doc’s Political Parlor

Alabama Gas Corporation has announced that they have no plans to lower utility rates this winter. Last year they hiked rates as much as 37% and blamed the increase on disruptions in supply caused by hurricanes. Since last year, they have voluntarily cut rates by approximately 9%.

The Public Service Commission could order the company to lower rates, and a spokesman has said that gas rates are a high priority for their December 5 meeting. The PSC is a three-member, elected body that regulates utilties. Two members, Jan Cook (D) and Jim Sullivan (R), have questionable ties to public utilities and allegations of campaign finance irregularities. The third member, Susan Parker (D), was just elected.

The Mobile Press-Register, the greatest frickin’ paper in Alabama, has also recently discovered that the PSC has virtually no oversight. Technically, the attorney general represents the public before the PSC, but he has no legal authority to audit the books of the body. There are currently three AG staff assigned to PSC oversight. To compare, Mississippi has a staff of 30 watching the PSC. North Carolina has 82. Both of these states can audit the books.

Alabama used to have a Public Staff within the PSC that was independent and had auditing ability. That independent office was disbanded in 1985 in response to a lawsuit from the utilities. Shortly after that, natural gas rates have been steadily climbing at a higher rate than the national average. Outgoing Commissioner George Wallace, Jr. (R) says a lack of oversight should be a major concern for Alabamians.

“It would be very beneficial to the people of Alabama. When I called for the public hearings to look into the gas rates being so high last year, I wanted an independent audit of the utilities. My fellow commissioners didn’t agree.”

Can we get him back? Maybe his replacement, Susan Parker, will be okay.

Governor Riley has set the date for a special election to fill the House District seat 22. The seat was left vacant after Rep. Albert Hall (D-Gurley) died just days after being reelected to his eigth term.

The primary will be held on January 23, with a potential runoff scheduled for March 6. If no runoff is necessary, the general election will be held on that date instead. If there is a runoff, the general election will be held on April 10.

Hall faced primary opposition in June against fellow Democrat Lynn Leach. I wonder if she will try to run for the seat again.

I don’t keep a free-for-all blogroll like some people. My sidebar has a section called “Daily reads” which is a list of the blogs I read on a [mostly] daily basis. For me to link to you, I have to read your blog often. You also get a freebie if you contribute to this blog. It’s that simple. I remove people if I stop reading them (especially if they don’t post enough), and I add people if I start reading them.

So if you’re looking for a link: leave comments, maybe send me an email so I can check you out, post about politics and society, and post fairly often. It may take me a while to become a regular reader, but be patient. If I read you, I’ll link to you.

The University of Alabama’s faculty senate has approved a ban on smoking within 30 feet of any campus building.

“Smoking — even in its diluted form outside — gets sucked back through the vents of the buildings. Buildings like dormitories have windows that are sealed, so smoke from the outside goes right back and stays on the inside,” said [faculty senate member Dr. Alan] Blum.

Unless the buildings manage to continuously compress air (which would eventually create a black hole), air can’t enter the building unless other air is leaving. But hey, I don’t have a Ph.D like this guy so maybe he’s smarter than I am.

I go to the University of Alabama, and I’ve never had an experience where smoke was in a building. He’s also worried that people have to walk through clouds of smoke when entering buildings.

Before it can go into effect, the Student Government Association and the staff assembly have to sign off on it. I don’t see that happening.

Some new regulations about abortion clinics have some people up in arms.

Under the proposal, “all physicians associated with the facility must be board eligible or board certified in obstetrics and gynecology.” The only exception would be a backup physician with credentials to perform certain procedures at a hospital within the same metropolitan area as the clinic.

Although anti-abortion activists are saying this is a measure for safety, it’s likely the result of a group of people sitting around thinking, “Hmm… how can we further restrict abortion in Alabama.” The truth is that physicians that are board certified in obstetrics and gynecology have no more training in abortion procedures than family practicioners.

I don’t really feel strongly about the abortion debate at all, but I’m starting to really dislike the anti-choice crowd. As a general rule, I tend to disfavor government regulation over anything, and I tend to dislike organizations who seek to politically motivate the court system to meet an objective. State governments were regulating women’s reproduction in the 1970s when Roe v. Wade came out. Now, these organizations are collectively pouring millions of dollars into the political sphere in an attempt to coerce the appointment of justices or the election of lawmakers so that the regulation of reproduction can continue. That makes me uneasy.

I do understand that there is a legitimate opposition to abortions. But maybe I’d feel a lot differently if these groups would spend their money trying to help women have an alternative to abortion instead of trying make law so that men with guns will force their religious understanding of conception on everyone else.

So it seems that 90% of email sent worldwide is now spam, according to Postini, an internet security company. Another group, Spamhaus, estimates that about 80% of the world’s spam comes from just 200 criminal groups.

There probably shouldn’t be a law against sending out mass emails (they couldn’t be enforced anyway), but many of these criminals use botnets to cheaply send out millions of spam messages. That means that they illegally hijack millions of computers on the internet with a program. These programs then use a background process to serve the spamming system without the user’s knowledge. It’s a cheap and ultra-powerful way to literally have the computing power of millions of home PCs.

We’re at the point where about 75% of the comments left here at BTL are spam. It’s a nasty problem. If you don’t already, I would highly recommend getting a free firewall (I use ZoneAlarm), a free copy of AdAware, and invest some money in some good antivirus software. If you have a cable or DSL connection, it also helps to have a decent router with protective firmware. These things won’t block spam messages for you, but they will help prevent your computer from being taken over for these purposes.

South Park simply provides the best social commentary and satire available on cable television. If you can’t get over the crude language, I’m sorry. I don’t think these two videos have much bad language, though.

Since we have a possible Mormon Presidential contender for 2008, I think it’s a good idea to delve into their beliefs.

First, the story of Joseph Smith, the founder of Mormonism (in song):

And the moral of the story:

As far as Mitt Romney goes, I agree with South Park’s conclusion. Yeah, it’s a weird religion, but aren’t they all?

• H/T Andrew Sullivan

I was hoping this wouldn’t happen, but it has. Maybe some good will come out of this, maybe not. I just don’t think we should fire the coach every time we have a bad season. Everyone knew we were going to suck going into this year, but I admit that the losses to Auburn and Mississippi State were worse than expected.

Now the team has to get used to a new coach. We’ll see how next season goes. Oh yeah, Mal Moore, the Athletics director at UA, is a jackass so that helps me not like the decision.

I guess last year’s 10-2 season and the overwhelming victory against Florida (31-3) don’t matter. We also eeked by against Tennessee (6-3). But no, we lost to Auburn by a touchdown this year after two quarterback fumbles caused a 27-yard and an 8-yard touchdown drive for the Tigers. And then a last-minute fumble (after recovering a fumble) destroyed the chance of forcing overtime. But no, it’s better to play musical chairs with coaches again.

As Jeff told us earlier, the two named candidates for the chairmanship of the Alabama Republican Party are Sen. Scott Beason and Rep. Mike Hubbard. The current chairman, Twinkle Andress Cavanaugh, has already indicated she does not intend to run for another term. She will return to Governor Riley’s administration. There are two reasons I think that’s a good thing.

First of all, she doesn’t seem to be helping the Republican Party much. Despite the momentum of Alabama toward a red state, the GOP had mixed results in 2006. They won two additional seats in the state Senate, but they saw no net gain in the state House and they lost many elections at the county and local level. More Alabamians also continued voting straight Democrat instead of straight Republican this election. I don’t personally think that reflects well for Democrat voters, but the 70,000 straight ticket deficit doesn’t spell good news for the Republicans.

Another reason I’m happy to see Twinkle go is that she is way too hackish. I expect a Republican chairman to think the Republican Party is the best thing ever, but I don’t think that excuses the level of gay-bashing, political threats, and name-calling that Twinkle resorted to. I’ll be happy to see her go.

This happened while I was on my hiatus, but Lucy Baxley is still in the hospital after she suffered a minor stroke. She was admitted to the hospital Thursday but it is not known when she will be released.

A UAB Hospital spokesman said she was in good condition.

Chief Justice elect Sue Bell Cobb sure is talking a lot about the selection of judges. For that alone, I’m glad she won. No justice on the Alabama Supreme Court can alter the way they are chosen, but having the chief justice advocating for merit selection certainly helps.

The 2006 chief justice election left voters with two choices. Assuming the candidates are controlled by their campaign donors, Sue Bell Cobb represented trial lawyers and Drayton Nabers represented big business. Most partisans are happy to decry one and not the other. “She’s funded by special interest trial lawyers!” I hear a lot. That is certainly true, but tell me how that’s any different than being funded by the BCA, ALFA and the other corporate PACs. Again assuming the candidates are controlled to some degree by their campaign donors, Alabama was left with two choices — either the trial lawyers or the big businesses they were sueing would be helped. What a choice.

Of course, all that stuff about impartial jurists doesn’t matter. How can it? We elect judges, and elections take money. People give you money for two reasons. They either intend to control you to some degree, or they don’t have to because they know you’ll go their way. Don’t think for a second that these donors give money for any other reason! These are rich lawyers and successful businessman. They don’t spend that kind of money unless it’s an investment.If we actually had an impartial jurist who had no obvious bias, who is going to give him or her money?

On top of money it takes personality. How many voters read an opinion from the candidates before voting? How many even understood a vague notion about the jurisprudence of the candidates? Very few. A majority voted for Cobb because she had a commercial that reminded them about the old days when they went to Sunday School and sang, “This Little Light of Mine.” They voted against Nabers because he looks like a mortician.

I favor a merit selection of appellate judges where candidates are named by a nominating committee and the governor selects his choice from those candidates. Perhaps the state senate then has to confirm. The judges will still serve the same staggered six-year terms, but at the end of their term they are put to retention elections where they are the only name on the ballot and the people decide to either keep or remove them from office. This way there is still some politics in play and there is still some degree of “accountability to the people” (as opposed to the law). That won’t get rid of politics and favors, but I think it would be better than the current system.

Please tell me how I’m wrong.

In July, Roy Johnson was fired from his job as the state’s two-year college system president. This was partly the result of an investigation that Attorney General Troy King was conducting on the two-year college system. The system had been accused of handing jobs out as favors, and Johnson in particular had been accused of handing out jobs to relatives and friends.

During King’s investigation, he apparently asked Johnson to find a job for the mother of one of his staff. You just can’t make stuff like this up. He was investigating Johnson for cronyism at the same time he asked him to find a job for the mother his deputy attorney general. The mother got a job at the college Johnson used to be president of, Southern Union State Community College.

“Looking back now, it probably was not the best decision,” King said. “If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t do it.”

This guy is retarded. Since it’s become public, he says he will ask the St. Clair County District Attorney Richard Minor to oversee his staff’s investigation. What does Johnson have to say about handing out a job?

He praised King as “an honest, Christian guy. I have the highest regard for him.”

With friends like those…

This is a double-whammy, but they’re both from the same person. I would rate this is relatively difficult because the subject is not what the author is primarily known for. Loretta Nall is not allowed to answer

The first:

I’m in favor of legalizing drugs. According to my values system, if people want to kill themselves, they have every right to do so. Most of the harm that comes from drugs is because they are illegal.

The second:

Every friend of freedom… must be as revolted as I am by the prospect of turning the United States into an armed camp, by the vision of jails filled with casual drug users and of an army of enforcers empowered to invade the liberty of citizens on slight evidence.