Politics

See? They know what’s best.

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

You may be a parent, they may be your children, but you don’t know how to best care for them.

Let government do it for you. Government — and our benevolent “leaders” — know best.

San Francisco has become the first major U.S. city to pass a law that cracks down on the popular practice of giving away free toys with unhealthy restaurant meals for children.

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors passed the law on Tuesday on a veto-proof 8-to-3 vote. It takes effect on December 1.

The law, like an ordinance passed earlier this year in nearby Santa Clara County, would require that restaurant kids’ meals meet certain nutritional standards before they could be sold with toys.

I grant that McDonald’s food is pretty crappy. I try to avoid eating there merely because it’s so bland and there are far better burgers out there. But why should McDonald’s (or any restaurant) be forced to play nanny to your children?

The San Francisco law would allow toys to be given away with kids’ meals that have less than 600 calories, contain fruits and vegetables, and include beverages without excessive fat or sugar.

Backers of the ordinance say it aims to promote healthy eating habits while combating childhood obesity.

Sorry, but that doesn’t really work to combat obesity nor promote healthy eating habits. Parents are still going to drag their kids to McDonald’s, the kids are still going to eat the crappy burger and fries and soda, but now just not get a toy. That people feed their kids this food is far beyond the worthless toy. But hey… we’ve got to do something, right? We’ve got to feel like we’re making a difference, because you know… it’s all for the children, and we’re certainly thinking of them whereas you evil corporations just care about your profits.

“Our children are sick. Rates of obesity in San Francisco are disturbingly high, especially among children of color,” said San Francisco Supervisor Eric Mar, who sponsored the measure.

But amongst all those transparent children…. well, we can’t see them anyways so we don’t know how fat they are.  I hate the term “children of color” because even “white” children have color… and this “well-intended” comment is also pretty bad because it’s implying all those poor dumb Blacks and Hispanics really can’t take care of themselves so here’s big daddy whitey to take care of them because he knows best. *sigh*

That slope… it’s so slippery…. and how far we have slid.

Free Speech Permit

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Just a couple of days ago I was reading this article (h/t Uncle) and started thinking to myself “gee… what if we had to go through that much for something like free speech?”  I mean, if you had to go to class, learn the laws, demonstrate proficiency, pass tests, get permits, could have the permit revoked if you didn’t properly exercise your speech, pay all sorts of fees, deal with all sorts of bureaucracy, etc. etc..  If such a thing happened, people would be hysterical and would never allow such a thing. It would be considered unreasonable.

What if such a thing was done for practicing of religion? That before you could practice your religion you had to learn everything about it, demonstrate you could perform the rituals, obtain a license, be forced to renew every 5 years, be fingerprinted and background checked before you could join. Is that reasonable?

Yet, all this permitting and hoopla for gun carry is considered reasonable.

Why?

I mean, you could argue that all of those things would be good before someone could be allowed to speak. Heck, what if we added a requirement that you could only speak English? Would that be reasonable?

Some might say “but a gun can kill”. True, but words can be even more destructive. What’s the difference?

So I was going to write up a nice piece on this, but Linoge took care of it for me. Give it a read. You don’t have to like guns, but if you care about freedom, if you care about consistency and integrity, it’s a hell of a good point.

Election aftermath

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Most of the returns are in. A little bit of good, a little bit of bad.

Texas House. I’m not totally hip to Paul Workman, but in theory he’s going to be better than Valinda Bolton. We’ll see how he pans out.

Texas Senate. No question that Jeff Wentworth was going to win it, and generally I’m pleased with that.

And Gov. Good Hair continues to hold office. I’m not surprised Rick Perry won. I did get to watch Bill White’s concession speech, and I found it to be a good one… no real jabs or other bitter-loser b.s. that you often hear. Gained a little respect for the guy after listening to that speech. Am I happy about Perry winning? Well, I’m more happy that Bill White didn’t win. Perry isn’t horrible, but he’s certainly pissed me off a fair deal. And now all his hooting and hollering about things like Texas sovereignty, how well Texas is run, showing those schmoes in Washington how it’s done and keeping them out of Texas business… well, let’s see how well your actions keep up.

And the rest of the Texas state level offices, generally OK with things. It looks like the Texas House gained a lot of Republican seats. We’ll see how that plays into redistricting. I’m also curious what Alice Tripp thinks about how things panned out.

On the national level…

So the Republicans have the US House and MIGHT get the US Senate (as of this writing, 3 races are undecided). Even if the Republicans don’t have Senate majority, there’s no more super-majority.

Ran Paul winning…. I wonder how that will pan out. Will he be like his father and generally vote “no” on everything?

Plus, we won’t have to look at Nancy Pelosi’s face all the time. I consider that a win. 🙂

I am sad that Dr. Donna Campbell didn’t win. But what I was happy about was seeing that Lloyd Doggett didn’t win by much (tally I see says 53% to 45%). Doggett’s past wins were all by 60-something percent wins, so this win is far less decisive. Lloyd are you listening? No, of course you’re not… you’ve already demonstrated you won’t listen to the people you’re supposed to be representing. You keep acting this way and you are going to be gone…especially with redistricting coming up. I’d love to see if Dr. Campbell would run again in 2012.

Governors won a lot of seats as well.

My feeling isn’t so much that people wanted Republicans as people wanted not-Obama. Yesterday’s election results I think were a message to say that we don’t like what’s going on in Washington. People thought the “Tea Party” movement was something to marginalize, but it seems to have been quite the force in yesterday’s results. I’m sure today there will be much talk about “reaching across the aisle” and talks of “compromise” and “bi-partisan solutions” and other such b.s..  I’m sure Democrats will say “OK, you Republicans now have majority… let’s see what you can do” and that’s fair. I loved listening to some Republicans saying last night how they want to return to 2008 spending levels. Uh…. you know, overspending way too fucking much is still overspending way too fucking much. So you know, it’s just going to be business as usual for the most part… *sigh*

I will say, the current setup is going to make the next 2 years rather interesting. And the fun all starts this morning.

My popcorn bowl is pretty deep.

Grab your popcorn

/ hsoi

Today shall be an interesting day, being Election Day and all.

First, if you haven’t yet voted, you need to vote. There’s no excuse not to (unless you don’t live in the USA).

Second, the predictions are Republicans will take majority in the US House, Democrats will retain a slim majority in the US Senate. I’m also curious how things will fall on a more local level. For instance, will Paul Workman be able to oust Valinda Bolton? The make-up of Austin is changing. Makes me also wonder how the D-25 race will go… will Donna Campbell be able to oust Lloyd Doggett. Of course, I hope so, but this will be most interesting since D-25 only has a sliver of Austin and the rest is more “traditional Texas”… but in the past, tho Doggett has won with about 60-some percent of the vote, about 2/3rds of that came out of Austin. So if people in the not-Austin part of D-25 turn out well, Campbell has a chance of winning it. It’s going to be interesting to see. Doggett knows Campbell is a threat, and while even the soothsayers are predicting a Doggett win they aren’t predicting a landslide or easy win.

So, grab your popcorn. Not just to watch the returns tonight, but the real fun will come tomorrow.

Muscovy Regulation – an update

/ hsoi / 1 Comment

This is important for all of my readers to read and act upon.

US Fish and Wildlife regulation CFR 21.54 has caused quite a stir with people who care about muscovy ducks. I mentioned the problem regulation before.

FWS has published proposed changes. From George T. Allen:

We have published proposed changes to the regulations governing waterfowl.  The changes are intended to accommodate activities with muscovy ducks, particularly keeping the ducks for exhibition, or as barnyard animals for personal consumption and egg production.  The changes also address sale of the ducks and their eggs.

You can submit comments by either of the methods highlighted in red in the proposed rule.  Submissions by any other means may not be considered when we prepare the final rule.  Comments on the proposed rule are due no later than 30 December 2010.

– – – – – – – – – – – – – – –

George T.  Allen, Ph.D., C.W.B.
Chief, Branch of Permits and Regulations
Division of Migratory Bird Management
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
4401 North Fairfax Drive, Mail Stop 4107
Arlington, Virginia  22203-1610
703-358-1825     fax 703-358-2272
George_T_Allen@fws.gov

You can find the proposed changes here.

Tobi Kosanke has been active in protesting the changes.

“I have two very large issues with this regulation.  First of all, it regulates a non-migratory domesticated bird that has been kept as both pet and livestock since the inception of our country.  A bird designated as livestock should NOT be regulated by the FWS,” Kosanke said.  “Second, the issues with the Muscovy that the FWS is trying to address are nearly identical to those of the Mallard, which IS a migratory bird.  Like the Muscovy, the Mallard duck is a waterfowl that individuals commonly purchase from hatcheries, has become a nuisance population in some areas, and also breeds with other species of duck, yet there is no national control order for the Mallard, nor are all Mallards in the U.S. required to be marked with leg or wing bands; instead, problems with Mallards are dealt with on the local level.”

The regulation just isn’t right to begin with. It makes no sense. It’s not well-thought out nor well-researched. It’s good that they listened to the people (they’re supposed to… they are serving us) and revised the regulation, but the revisions aren’t good enough.

 

“When the FWS announced that they were amending the regulation, I was very hopeful.  But, unfortunately, while the amendment does address the issues of the bird clubs and livestock industry, both of which heavily lobbied the FWS to not include exhibition birds or poultry raised for meat in their regulation, the largest contingent of Muscovy lovers was ignored,” Kosanke said.  “As it is now written, regulation CFR 21.54 makes it illegal for individuals and subdivisions to maintain their pet duck populations.  It also makes it illegal for counties and cities to place Muscovy ducks on their ponds.”

 

 

Dear Readers: please take a few moments and comment on the regulation.

  1. Visit regulations.gov
  2. Search for docket: FWS-R9-MB-2010-0037
  3. Submit a comment on that docket.

It should take you 5-10 minutes to do. Even if you don’t care about muscovy ducks, I know my readers are folks that care about the state of our government. Inconsistent regulation is unacceptable. Come on you gun guys… you hate stupid laws like these, why should this be any exception?  We lose our freedoms not through sweeping acts, but through little things like this. I know you guys care about freedom and a well-behaved government. Please help out.

Thank you.

 

Who is not in touch with reality?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

The Dallas Morning News has an article discussing cautious optimism at getting concealed carry on Texas college campuses passed in the 2011 legislative session.

What stood out to me in the article was this:

 

But Colin Goddard, assistant director for federal legislation for the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, who survived the massacre at Virginia Tech, says allowing guns on campus is a bad idea.

“If there’s someone coming in to shoot a bunch of people in a classroom, you’re already lost,” said Goddard, who was shot four times. “To think you can react and effectively shoot the target … These people have seen too many movies. They’re not in touch with reality.”

 

 

I wonder how many movies Mr. Goddard has seen.

Tom Givens of Rangemaster has had nearly 60 students survive self-defense incidents because they were carrying concealed.

They were able to react and effectively shoot the target.

They were very in touch with reality — that’s why they carried their guns. That’s why they lived.

 

Early Voting Rally

/ hsoi / 8 Comments

I just returned from an Early Voting Rally. It happened to be sponsored by Texas Republicans… not 100% sure who exactly was sponsoring it (e.g. Travis County Republicans, Texas as a whole, etc.), but it was attended by all your big Texas Republicans: Gov. Rick Perry; Sen. John Cornyn; Jerry Patterson, Texas Land Commissioner; Susan Combs, Texas Comptroller; Attorney General Greg Abbott; Melissa Goodwin, 3rd Court of Appeals; Paul Workman, candidate for Texas State House District-47; Dr. Donna Campbell, candidate for US House Texas District 25; and a host of other Texas Republicans.

Now, I’m not a Republican… and on more than one occasion I wanted to shout out something that would have rubbed folks raw. But this was not the place for such things, and I had bigger reasons to not stir the pot. For you see, I took my children to this event. I was glad to see other parents brought their children too, because this is a lesson in civics. Furthermore, it let’s them see these people close up and see they’re not just a picture on the TV. Besides, you can’t appreciate Gov. “Good Hair” unless you can see him up close. 😉

What I loved most? Oldest. He groaned at the thought of attending this event, but of course he had no choice… he was going. Then I happened to notice during Gov. Perry’s rousing speech… there was Oldest, cheer and applauding with gusto! Yeah, he got into it. 🙂

As a random aside, it was fun watching Gov. Perry’s security detail. One guy (you can see him behind Jerry Patterson in the above picture, in the sunglasses) was pretty tough and serious looking. I nicknamed him Agent Franks. 🙂

As the rally broke up, I managed to chase down Dr. Campbell to say hello. Introduced Daughter to her as well. I could tell she was a tired lady, but a tough one. I applaud her efforts and hope it pans out in a couple of weeks. Daughter was excited to meet Dr. Campbell. 🙂  I was also happy that on the drive home we saw a couple more Donna Campbell yard signs in the neighborhood!

For me, that’s the big reason I went this morning: I wanted my children to experience this. Oh sure, I’ve done things like this before, when I was a kid and my Dad was a Congressman; but then it was “Ugh.. can we go home now?”. Today was the first time I attended a rally because I wanted to be there, and I wanted my children to be there. I want them to understand that politics can and does suck, but we cannot ignore it. It’s important to our lives and something all responsible citizens must care about and partake in. Plus, since they had such a good time, I think it left a positive impression on the kids that sometimes yes, politics can be fun.

Early Voting starts Monday

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

OK fellow Texans.

Early voting starts on Monday.

If you are registered to vote (and if you’re not, why aren’t you?), if you know who you are going to vote for, you best make sure you get to the polls and cast your vote!

If you are registered but don’t yet know who you are going to vote for, you best get yourself educated quickly! Then go cast your vote.

There’s no excuse to not vote.

If you think one vote can’t make a difference, think if everyone thought that way. If instead you think that your one vote can make a difference and everyone thinks this way, then look at the turnout we’d have! Races can and have been decided by one vote. Your vote matters! If nothing else, that you voted also validates your “I can bitch about things” card… you know, don’t vote, don’t bitch. 🙂

If you want to not vote as your way of voicing your opinion, realize that doesn’t work in our current system. The system doesn’t tally who doesn’t vote, only who votes. Lack of voting as an explicit message just gets lumped in with the people who didn’t vote because they didn’t give a darn or couldn’t be bothered to get out of bed in the morning. So if you are trying to say something, you must vote!

Vote!

Now THIS is a boilerplate

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I just received an email from one of my US Senators.

Dear Mr. Daub:

Thank you for your recent letter.  I am glad to have the benefit of your ideas and appreciate you bringing this matter to my attention.

You may be certain I will keep your suggestions in mind as these matters are discussed.  I appreciate having the opportunity to represent you in the United States Senate.  Thank you for taking time to contact me.

Sincerely,

JOHN CORNYN
United States Senator

 

 

How… personal!

I have no idea what this is in regards to (their reply system could have at least quoted why I contacted them). My guess is the muscovy duck FWS issue, which they are unlikely to have a stock reply about (e.g. my previous email to him regarding some tax issues with gun makers received a boilerplate “gun rights” reply since they merely keyed off the word “gun” and not “tax”).

My tax dollars at work.

 

Do the Republicans get it?

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

In today’s mail I received a Travis County Ballot Book. It’s a little booklet designed to be a candidate guide for the upcoming elections. Of course my first reaction is to see who put it out to know how the bias will spin. This particular guide was published by the Travis County Republican Party (how lame… the booklet says their website is www.tcrp.org but that doesn’t work).

The guide starts out with a letter to voters from the TCRP Chair, Rosemary Edwards, Ph.D.. It ends with this gem:

The Republican Party in Travis County stands for protecting YOU from the overreach of government. Your hard earned money is being spent in ways that just don’t make a lot of sense. We want to keep more money in our own pockets to provide for our families. We stand with you in cutting back government programs that get in the way of your prosperity.

When your representatives do not represent the will of the people, we stand with you to VOTE them OUT!

Gosh… what are the odds these words are going to come back and haunt the Republicans?

I do like the word-craft. “Overreach of government”… which means they’ll be happy to reach into your lives and pocketbook to whatever level they see fit, but no more. “We want to keep more money in our own pockets to provide for our families”; my guess is that came out differently than it was intended, but I’ll chalk it up to a Freudian slip because yes… they want to keep more of OUR money (my money) in their own pockets to provide for THEIR families. And cut back programs that get in the way of my prosperity, which implies they’ll be happy to create loads of programs that they believe will somehow benefit me.

What a crock.

I like the last part tho, that if they don’t represent the will of the people they need to be voted out.

You Republicans do realize that means you too, right? Supposing your party wins big in 2010, you realize if you fuck up over the next two years you’ll be seeing an even bigger problem in 2012? Are you going to be man enough to say “yes, vote me out because I talked shit and didn’t back it up like the no-integrity-having scumbag I am?” Or better, are you man enough to acknowledge if you make a mistake and voluntarily step aside?

I’m not betting on them being any different, but I’d be happy to be proven wrong.

The Republicans right now are preaching “hope and change” of their own, especially the change part. I know this is nothing but election-time posturing to get themselves back in power. What they fail to realize is they too are part of the problem. I’d be happy if the Republicans gained control of the Congress because a little gridlock would be good (helps minimize potential for damage). But what the old guard (Democrat and Republican establishment) needs to realize is they are both part of the problem and causing the growing unrest in this nation. The more you bullshit the citizenry, the more angry and upset they will become. Obama promised change, and we got nothing but the same old bullshit. Now you Republicans are promising an alternative, but I know it’s the same old bullshit. Once both major parties demonstrate they’re cut from the same cow patty, it’s only downhill from here.