A few days ago Mr. Bob reminded us that Bill Ritter’s car tax was a-comin’. Well, count me among the lucky ones who has a vehicle due to have the license renewed in July, and be hit by the tax first.
Yesterday the notice came in the mail from the Jefferson County Clerk and Recorder. Usually, as the car ages and depreciates, the registration fee drops from year to year. This time it increased by more than 31 dollars. We’ll find out what the damage is on the family van in a couple months — probably about the same, methinks.
Colorado Governor Bill Ritter screwed up with his handling of the Senate Bill 180 veto. Stumbling across a good public policy decision, he provoked the wrath of labor union special interests.
Since Bill Ritter has found himself on this sensible path, perhaps he could continue a little longer and throw his weight behind an idea which time has come: financial transparency for labor unions representing state and local government employees.
Of course, in doing so, Ritter would have to buck the trend of Big Labor cronyism being advanced by his party leader, President Barack Obama. From my recent Independence Institute op-ed: (more…)
I go out of town for a week, miss an edition of Liberty on the Rocks – Red Rocks, and organizer Jeff Sacco outdoes himself. Face The State reported on the growing political heft that attended last Monday’s meeting. If you live on the west side of the Denver metro area, and you haven’t dropped by to one of the meetings yet, now is your chance to get connected.
As a Michigan-born expatriate, I’m fascinated by today’s news in the Denver Post that a wolverine has been sighted in the wild here in Colorado for the first time in 90 years:
Bob Inman, director of the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Yellowstone Wolverine Program, said the animal, tagged M56 and fitted with a radio collar in December, went on the move in April.
He traveled from Grand Teton National Park, crossing busy Interstate 80 in southern Wyoming, to reach timberline in the mountains of northern Colorado.
That leaves approximately the same number of wolverines in Colorado as in the so-called “Wolverine State”. One was spotted in Michigan about five years ago, the first in well over a century.
That’s why — even though I tend to cheer for the University of Michigan football and basketball teams — I prefer the more suitable nomenclature of “Great Lakes State” for the land of my birth. Maybe even the wolverines understand that Michigan is a great place to be from.
Are you looking for a good summertime fiction read? A fresh story in the fantasy/action genre that is simultaneously fast-paced and in-depth? Then I urge you to buy a copy of The Way of Shadows, the first in the Night Angel trilogy by Brent Weeks.
I love to read, but the fantasy/action genre — nor fiction in general — is typically not my cup of tea. Then again seldom do I know the author personally, as in this case. Brent and I went to Hillsdale College together, are fellow Sinfonians.
Having that sort of a personal connection with the author made it easy to pick up the book. But once I did, the crisp and colorful storytelling, the unpredictable plot, and the compelling characters were what kept the pages and chapters quickly turning. (more…)
Update, 6/4:Thanks to a comment left by Politically Correct Death author Francis Beckwith, I refer you to his newer and more relevant book Defending Life. I’ll have to check it out myself very soon.
Update, 9:30 PM:My final thought (for now) on the matter, from Doug Wilson: “The question is whether you would be willing to reduce a society to anarchy for the sake of saving that kid, when you (should) know that the anarchy you introduce is going to be responsible for the deaths of far more children than you managed to save.” And for further edification, I will commend the thoughts of Dr. Albert Mohler as being squarely right on the matter.
Thanks to one of the more thoughtful liberals I know, David Thielen, a link to this morning’s post about Dr. George Tiller and Private William Long was added in a ColoradoPols diary. Here are some of the more colorful comments it generated, along with my replies. (more…)
Unbelievably, a few weeks ago I passed the 10th anniversary of my graduation from Hillsdale College with a bachelors degree. But the spirit of school pride lives on, and my heart smiled when today I read William McGurn’s Wall Street Journal column “How Hillsdale Beats Harvard”.
After explaining how Hillsdale’s principled stand of not accepting any federal funds fits right in with the school’s warm welcome of military recruiters on campus, McGurn concludes:
If Harvard believes that our Armed Forces are inconsistent with its values, surely the honest thing to do is to stand on principle and accept the funding consequences. The folks at Hillsdale would be glad to show the way.
Back in the good old college days, there was a running quip among some of my friends that went something like this:
Person 1: “You know, Hillsdale is like the Harvard of the Midwest.”
Person 2: “You’ve got it wrong. Harvard is the Hillsdale of the East.”
Today is a perfect occasion to show off my predilection for recalling and recounting trivial information. Today is the first anniversary of giving up my wristwatch. Or more appropriately, of my last watch giving up the ghost. From age 7 to age 31 I wore some kind of wristwatch on my left arm. When the last one broke, I decided to see what it would be like to give up the instant time-telling habit cold turkey.
The good news is I have gone a whole year without a timepiece on my arm. Of course, having a cell phone that keeps track of time sure helps. But I never would have thought it would be so easy to live life wristwatch-free.
Now back to your regularly scheduled broadcasting of truly important news and commentary.
This report from the Detroit News strikes close to home:
Oakland County is taking a major hit in General Motors Corp.’s restructuring in bankruptcy, with an estimated 6,600 of the 8,900 factory jobs lost in Michigan based in the affluent county north of Detroit.
But one of the plants to be idled, in Orion Township, is in the running to build a small car in the future, said GM spokesman Chris Lee. The Orion site currently assembles the mid-size Chevrolet Malibu and Pontiac G6.
“It’s a real sad day,” said UAW Local 549 President Doug Bowman in Pontiac. Workers at Pontiac Assembly, which makes the Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra pickups, were told by plant officials at 8:15 a.m. the 3.4 million-square-foot plant will close in October or possibly sooner, Bowman said. In reality, the workers may have just a few weeks in the plant. The plant already is slated to be idled for five weeks starting June 11 to reduce inventory. The Pontiac Stamping plant, originally opened in 1926, has been put on standby capacity and will be idled December 2010.
It’s a sign of the times, one of those things that’s hard to put into words. My dad worked more than 30 years in the Pontiac plant. My Grandpa worked there before him. The world is changing fast, and Pontiac must feel like a bleak and desperate victim of it all.
Great piece by Vince Carroll in today’s Denver Post on Barack Obama’s Supreme Court appointment:
If racial and gender bigotry truly have no place in American public life today, then Judge Sonia Sotomayor, during her confirmation hearing for a seat on the U.S. Supreme Court, needs to utterly repudiate her 2001 assertion that “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.”
Putting that statement “in context” or explaining what she “really meant” will not do. Nor can Judge Sotomayor credibly argue that her assertion was an ill-considered mistake, since it was part of a prepared speech at the Berkeley school of law. No, she needs to reject it as the expression of bigotry that it was.
On this Memorial Day, I can’t think to do any better than point you back to last year’s remembrance:
O beautiful for heroes proved
In liberating strife,
Who more than self their country loved,
And mercy more than life!
America! America!
May God thy gold refine,
Till all success be nobleness,
And every gain divine.
Today, pay your respects to a fallen soldier, sailor, airman, Marine – and to their loved ones still with us. And don’t forget to thank the troops you meet for their service to us all. Happy Memorial Day!
For the handful of you out there who aren’t tired of hearing me talk about teachers unions, contract impasses, and sick-outs this week, you can listen to a new interview with Brad Jones on the most recent Face The State weekend edition (Segment 3). You also can hear an interview with U.S. Senate candidate Cleve Tidwell and discussions on some of Face The State’s big Colorado stories from the week that just passed.
It’s been a couple weeks since my last update on the baseball season for Civil Sense.
A great piece in yesterday’s Detroit News recounts the amazing feat of the 1984 Tigers’ 35-5 start. A quarter century later, this year’s Detroit squad is nowhere near the caliber of dominance of the franchise’s last world champions.
But the Tigers — winners of six straight — are like their 1984 predecessors in that they are in first place at the 40-game mark of the season. In this case, 8.5 games ahead of the Cleveland Indians.
Feeling ill because of the teacher sickout in Boulder Valley School District? Another 269 teachers came down with the phantom cough today.
Few things can drive people as crazy as trying to figure out the ins-and-outs of Colorado labor laws and policies, and how they apply to teachers and possible teacher strikes. So Mike Rosen had me on his show this morning (check May 19, 9 AM hour … I come on during the second half of the hour) to give the lowdown and shed some more light on the goings-on in Boulder.
If you’re bored, or maybe sick at home with the blue flu, please take time to listen and let me know what you think.
We were privileged with the opportunity last Saturday to sit down and conduct an exclusive half-hour two-on-one interview with Republican U.S. Senate candidate Ryan Frazier (Frazier’s two GOP primary contenders are Weld County district attorney Ken Buck and businessman Cleve Tidwell). The conversation was wide-ranging and informative. We left with a clearer picture of the candidate’s vision and the campaign’s direction.
We began by bringing up a recent article in The Hill that portrayed Frazier as part of a “band of centrists”, and asked him what he thought of the characterization. He responded: “I’m Ryan Frazier, and I do what I believe to be right. I’ve never been much for labels…. I’ll leave the labeling to the press.” Though he did choose the word “principled” to describe his philosophy, he was fairly adamant about not being categorized into a box.
Nor did Frazier express any dismay that Beltway Republican Party bigwigs have taken a wait-and-see approach to his candidacy (all the better in light of NRSC’s recent Florida endorsement): “I’m not really concerned about folks in Washington DC. I never expected to be their number one choice. As a matter of fact, I think that’s why our candidacy can be so significant. Because we’re not the establishment. We are a grassroots campaign…. I’m not as concerned about whether they think I’m a top choice.”(more…)
Developing story… Last night the board of the Jefferson County Education Association (JCEA)( (Colorado’s largest local teachers union and an affiliate of the Colorado Education Association) voted to declare an impasse in negotiations over renewing the collective bargaining contract with Jeffco Public Schools for the 2009-10 school year. This morning JCEA notified the school district of its decision.
According to the school district, the core of the dispute revolves around a proposed compensation agreement to address relative funding shortages during the current economic downturn. Under this plan, teachers would continue to receive their automatic steps and levels for acquiring seniority and credit hours.
The plan rejected by JCEA also would offer teachers an additional one-time 1 percent pay bonus for November 2009, making the increase permanent for 2010-11 if an additional $11 million in state funds comes through after budget projections are updated in January 2010.
(Editorial comment: At first glance, given the current economic downturn and the plight of many in the community, this creative proposal seems eminently fair.) (more…)
Institute boss Jon Caldara says he’s this close to closing the deal to have Plumber (a.k.a. Samuel Wurzelbacher) as the speaker. [Joe the] Plumber would join a distinguished roster of former speakers, which includes Christopher Hitchens and Fred Barnes. Westword named the party the “Best Place to See a Drunk Conservative.”
One problem. Joe the Plumber announced last week that he was quitting the Republican Party because he is outraged by GOP spending.
“Well, I agree with him on that,” says Caldara. “It would just be fun to have him there.”
Short of landing center stage for Sarah Palin herself, Joe The Plumber would be one of the best possible gets for this year’s ATF.
I have a friendly rivalry going this season with blogger Civil Sense from The Colorado Index. Today seemed like a good a time as any to point it out. Baseball is a long season, but his Cleveland Indians have slipped to the worst record in the Major Leagues after back-to-back home shutout losses to my Detroit Tigers.
Tonight’s 4-0 victory was great, but the finish couldn’t match the 1-0 thriller on Friday — when Tigers ace Justin Verlander carried his two-hit shutout into the ninth inning. Grady Sizemore came to the plate with one on and one out when … well, watch for yourself:
Yep, that’s my boy: Curtis Granderson. And my Detroit Tigers a game out of first place and six games ahead of Cleveland. Ouch, Civil Sense. Ouch. (It can’t feel good for Indians fan Jeff, either.)
The good news for the Indians is that 80 percent of the season is left to play.
