William Shatner is Awesome

The title to this post is so obvious that is needs no re-stating but check out this video and once more bask in the glory that is Shatner.

Bad News

Senators Rick Santorum and Peter Hoekstra gleefully revealed their success in getting a Pentagon report on WMDs in Iraq declassified today. (read the whole posted link for a full transcript of the press conference) The report states that the U.S. Military did find and secure as many as 500 chemical munitions (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq as far back as 2003. The report also claims that the government knows there are more weapons out there that have not yet been secured by the military.

Here’s my question: Why has Bush been quiet about this?

The belief that no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq has been used to pummel the president, Condi Rice, Rumsfeld and most all other administration officials and other supporters of the war in Iraq (me included) nearly every day since March of 2003 when the invasion started. Do you really think the administration would have taken all of this political damage if it weren’t extremely important that this knowledge be kept quiet? Senators Santorum and Hoekstra bragged about winning a fight with intelligence services in getting the portions of this WMD report they were reporting on declassified today. I know intelligence people can be a little over protective at times but doesn’t this topic seem like something they should be given the benefit of the doubt on? There has to be a good reason the Administration allowed itself to be pummeled on this topic rather than release this information. I wonder how much damage these “patriotic” Republican Senators did to our national security today? I wonder if we’ll ever know?

UPDATE (06/26/06 4:00 PM): Rep Hoekstra and Sen. Santorum are complaining in the Wall Street Journal today about stonewalling on the part of the Intelligence community in regards to the documents they “unveiled” last week.

Some officials in the intelligence community withheld the document we requested on WMDs, and somebody is resisting our request to declassify the entire document while briefing journalists in a tendentious manner. We will continue to ask for declassification of this document and the hundreds of thousands of other Saddam-produced documents, and we will also insist on periodic updates on discoveries in Iraq.

The demands they are making are absurd since it is obvious that the administration doesn’t want this stuff declassified. It seems to go beyond partisan politics for the administration which means it must be extemely important that this remain classified. The president will only gain more public approval for his ventures in Iraq if news about large stocks of captured WMDs comes to light…and yet…he wants this stuff kept quiet and even downplays the information recently released. I could be wrong about all of this but it sure seems counter-intuitive for the administration to be blocking these outspoken and desperate Republican congressmen if there isn’t a greater interest at stake.

Why Do I Think Democrats Have A Future in Utah?

http://utahamicus.blogspot.com/2006/06/tolerance-episode-one.html

Because Utah Democrats are doing a better job reflecting the beliefs and ideals of most Utahns than their clueless Republican counterparts. Thanks for that post Rob.

Do High Property Values mean Higher Taxes?

I’m still learning about how things work in Utah.

About a year ago I was driving around Northern Virginia working on an appraisal. As I typically do when driving during the day I was listening to the local talk radio show. (I know…a topic for a different post most likely…I’m addicted to local talk radio).

The topic for discussion was the huge increase in property taxes for residents of Fairfax County, VA. Real property values in that county between 2000 and 2005 increased at a rate of around 20% per year and so the amount residents paid in property taxes increased at about the same rates even though the actual tax rate remained the same. This meant that the increasing tax bills were pricing many people out of their own homes. It was a big political issue for people in all of northern Virginia.

For the past year or so northern Utah is experiencing similar growth in property values to that experienced by Northern Virginia in the first half of the 2000’s. Is there going to be the same problem with increasing taxes?

Here is a very interesting Deseret News article from last Monday that explains how property taxes in Utah are done differently than in most states.

Tax revenues are held at their current level no matter what property values are. So rising property values for Utahns actually mean lower property tax rates. The Deseret News article does a great job explaining how all this works and what it means for property owners in Utah. Props go to Doug Smeath the author of the piece.

Scalia’s Idiocy

Radley Balko is using Antonin Scalia’s own words in his opinion in the recent Supreme Court decision Hudson v. Michigan to make the justice look like a total idiot. It isn’t really that hard a job given the material Scalia gave him.

I haven’t personally read the whole decision…but this portion is startlingly dumb:

Another development over the past half-century that deters civil-rights violations is the increasing professionalism of police forces, including a new emphasis on internal police discipline. Even as long ago as 1989 we felt it proper to “assume” that unlawful police behavior “would be dealt with appropriately” by the authorities, but we now have increasing evidence that police forces across the United States take the constitutional rights of citizens seriously. There have been “wide ranging reforms in the education, training, and supervision” of police officers (cite omitted).

[…]

Moreover, modern police forces are staffed with professionals; it is not credible to assert that internal discipline, which can limit successful careers, will not have a deterrent effect. There is also evidence that the increasing use of various forms of citizen review can enhance police accountability.

I usually like Scalia but this kind of reasoning in a Supreme Court opinion is really weak…and a little scary. He basically seems to be saying that we don’t need constitutionally enforced protections of our fourth amendment rights anymore because police are more professional now than they were. WRONG!!! For more information on why Scalia sounds so incredibly stupid in his decision spend about 15 minutes scanning the posts at The Agitator. It should be stated that I don’t really disagree with the decision…I just think Scalia’s justification of the decision on the basis that Police are well trained and there is adequate discipline within their respective organizations is insane.

Robert D Miller, Davis County Commissioner (Seat A)

I give my unqualified endorsement to Rob Miller for Davis County Commission! Rob is a great guy who has a great message for Davis county. I met him through his blog: The Utah Amicus.

I think my favorite thing about Rob and the reason I know he’d be a great county commissioner is that he quickly responds to any question or concern in person and always asks for and listens to peoples’ suggestions then acts on them. There have been multiple times I’ve posted on this site things about Democrats and politics in Utah where Rob has been the one to respond to comments people post on my site with his phone number and an invitation for the commentor to give him a call. That is cool…and it reflects well on Rob and the Utah Democratic Party that he is so willing to listen to every point of view. I tried to find information on his opponent online…but was unsuccessful. There isn’t anything in Google indicating the guy even has a website. Oh well…I guess if he figures running as an (R) is all the campaigning he needs to do to win I don’t even need to bother posting his name. Go Rob!

UPDATE: Ok…I was wrong. Brett Millburn does have a website. Sorry I got snotty there.

Libertarian Democrats?

Over at Daily Kos among all the garbage about stolen elections and the always rampant “Bush Derangement Syndrome” was this post. I think Kos is onto something here. He doesn’t do a great job describing libertarians and why we have more in common with the Democrats than we do Republicans…but he tries…and that is something.

I’ve long thought that if most people were to confront their own political beliefs and ideas about government and its role they would come to the realization that they sympathise with libertarianism. Most people agree that government needs to exist to maintain order but that for the most part it should butt out of peoples’ lives as long as they aren’t harming anyone else.
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Keep America Stupider…Seal the Borders!!!

Here’s a great part of yesterday’s Best of the Web Today by James Toranto:

Blogger Harry Forbes notes something quite interesting:

The Boston Globe website published the pictures of each valedictorian in Boston’s high schools and other high school programs. As you thumb through the pictures, it is striking how many of these students are immigrants. So many, that I decided to take some statistics. The Globe listed the country of birth for each student. For some US-born students I guessed that they were 2nd generation immigrants (for instance if they were Vietnamese). Almost 2/3 of the Boston valedictorians are either immigrants or children of immigrants. From my analysis: here is the breakdown of the 38 valedictorians:

1st or 2nd generation US 63.2%
Later than 2nd generation US 32.8%

Born in the US 52.6%
Born overseas 47.4%

Maybe the anti-immigrant slogan should be: “Keep America stupid–seal the borders!”

Amen. I don’t mind the idea of building a wall to secure our borders…but most of the people arguing for secure borders are not also arguing in favor of allowing productive law abiding immigrants access to our nation. Thats why a comprehensive plan on immigration is so important. I hate taking Bush’s side on most anything but he’s right on this one. Keeping the cream of every other nation’s crop out of our country because of the nativist wackos who are most vocal on the wrong side of this argument would be a very stupid thing for our nation to do.

200 Liters of Diet Coke and 500 Mentos

For some reason the fact that there are people who have the time, energy and ingenuity to devote to things like this makes me feel really good about the state of the great nation we live in.