We had them nearly eradicated worldwide a few decades ago thanks to widespread use of pesticides…but they’re back.
Here’s a story about how bedbugs in Salt Lake City closed down a fire station.
Story and photo courtesy BOING BOING
CATO isn’t super excited about Romney’s health insurance scheme for lots of reasons. The fact that the new agency created by Romney to oversee the program is ripping off taxpayers and policy holders as a result of its bloated salary schedule is only one of them.
Read the whole thing. This guy is very cool.
Hat Tip: Instapundit
UPDATE: Dr./Senator Tom Coburn on Social Conservatism Vs. Fiscal Conservatism:
“You can look at abortion, you can look at all the social issues you want, but none of those matter if we’re not good stewards of the nation. I’m not going to be critical of the people who are pro-abortion. They have a different set of values than me. I can see their position, and I won’t demean it. I counsel lots of women—and I love them to death—who have been through abortion. I’ve done two abortions myself, to save the lives of women. When you talk about abortion, emotion gets into it. But you can understand the position of the other side. When you look at what’s happening with the American dollar, it is not as nuanced. The dollar is sliding against all major currencies in the world, because people are losing faith in our ability to repay all these loans. We’re living on borrowed financial time. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Democrat or a Republican. Those are the facts…”
“When you’re delivering a baby and the baby’s getting in trouble, and you can see the baby’s heartbeat, which is normally about 130 or 140 beats per minute, going down to fifty or sixty, and you’re standing there watching it go down, you know you’ve got about three minutes to make a decision. You can use a pair of forceps and try to pull it out, you can use a vacuum extractor, or you can leave labor and delivery, put her on the table, put her to sleep, cut a hole in her belly, and take it out with a C-section—but you’ve got to do something, and you’ve got to do it now. That baby’s life depends on what you do in those three minutes. And that’s exactly where we are in our country today. We are in those critical three minutes. If we wait to act, it’s going to be too late. We’re going to lose the baby.” (emphasis mine)
Coburn is exactly right. I have friends who are “conservatives” who support Republicans because they are concerned about social issues like abortion and homosexuality. When I point out how bad Republicans have been for the fiscal health of our nation they lack much concern at all about the poor economic judgement their party has shown. The really sad thing is that it is the economic stuff that is actually vital to the survival of our republic.
I outed myself as a “liberal” Mormon today at work.
A co-worker was talking about a Stake Conference she attended this weekend presided over by a general authority of the LDS Church. She told the story about how the general authority during his talk called out two young men from the congregation. One of the young men had been home from his mission for a month and a half and the other young man was just getting ready to go. The speaker spoke to the young men and pointed out to the congregation differences between the young men and their physical and spiritual development then focused on the return missionary’s goatee. The person telling the story said that the speaker then scolded the young man for having facial hair and asked him to committ to shaving it off as soon as possible.
Stories like this drive me crazy. I foolishly blurted out something about how the speaker must be a complete weiner to do something like that in a stake conference. I don’t think my comment went over very well but I didn’t care and I launched into a few more complaints about situations or stories like this I’ve heard.
I’m not proud of my inability to keep quiet but I get so frustrated with examples like this that in my mind contribute to the idea that members of my religion might be more concerned with the outward display of piety than inward faith, obedience and humility.
We waste too much jail space in our country on non-violent offenders of our drug laws. Check out this post and accompanying MP3 here at the Senate Site with Sen. Buttars explaining how Utah can be “smart on crime” as opposed to being “tough on crime”.
I don’t agree with Buttars in many instances…it is nice to hear him being correct on something.
Whether you believe we evolved from apes or were placed on this earth by God one thing man has that sets him apart from the animals is his ability to tell stories. Now is a great time to be alive partly because mankind’s ability to tell great stories has never been as effective as it is now.
I’m home on sick leave today because I had to take a kid in for minor surgery to have tubes put in her ears. In celebration of the time off my wife and I sat down with our recovering kid and watched last Sunday’s episode of “Battlestar Galactica” and last Monday’s episode of “Heros” together.
Both were excellent. Especially “Heros”. There is enough story in that one show to make 6 great movies. If you haven’t been watching it you really should consider buying the series on DVD when it comes out this summer.
Tyler at Davis County Watch has picked up on the arguments being put forth by DavisParents.org, an organization working to change business as usual in the Davis County School District. I’ve complained in the past about this group’s less effective efforts to get their point across but their more professional works do reveal several problems with the way our school district is being run that really need to be addressed.
I think it is fascinating that what began as a group of parents angry that their kids had to change schools has organized into an effort to create an effective lobby for change in how our school district is managed. There are a lot of problems I’d have never known about if this hadn’t taken place.
Good luck to DavisParents.org. I agree with many of your arguments even though your public protests are lame and counterproductive
If you were trying to defend a government policy of revoking constitutionally protected rights what rhetoric would you use to try to convince the public that you were in the right?
AG Gonzales: I meant by that comment that the Constitution doesn’t say that every individual in the United States or every citizen has or is assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says that the right of habeas corpus shall not be suspended.
Not a bad entry.
Hat Tip: Hit and Run
UPDATE: 1/19/2007 11:51
Thank you Part of the Plan for linking video of an extended part of the conversation between Sen. Arlen Spector and Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez. Everyone should hear what the chief law enforcement officer of the Bush administration thinks about the U.S. Constitution. His argument seems to be that habeas corpus isn’t expressly granted in the Constitution so the prohibition in that document against taking it away is basically meaningless. The extended conversation is even more damning than the brief portion I quoted above.
I was reading through one of the liberal blogs I regularly peruse, Josh Marshall’s TPM, and found two interesting posts on Republican presidential politics one right after the other.
The first one starts:
When do people wake up to the fact that John McCain is going nowhere in the 2008 presidential race? A new ARG poll shows that over the past year, McCain’s support among New Hampshire independents has dropped from 49% to 29%. And ARG President Dick Bennett says those numbers are in line with what he’s seeing in other states too.
The second post links to this and simply states: “Rudy can’t win.”
I agree with both posts. I also think Romney has done a good job making sure he’ll be the guy left standing as his opponents fade away. I really like Romney’s chances at the nomination. Thats why I’m so concerned about the fact that he has shown time and time again that his ideology is extremely fluid. The guy will say anything to get elected…and it just might work. He might be a great leader with lots to contribute to our country. We’ll never know for sure though till after he gets the job since he clearly doesn’t intend to tell any of his constituencies anything other than what he thinks they want to hear.
Here’s hoping this works out successfully as soon as possible!
This post at The Senate Site brought a great sense of joy and satisfaction to my heart.
Here’s hoping the legislature can take a break from the stupid bills they plan on working on to get something useful like this passed.
Several articles at TPMmuckraker have been posted over the past couple days cataloguing what seems to be a purge of the ranks of U.S. Attorneys by the Bush administration. Before we get into the nitty gritty of all of this it is important to point out that U.S. Attorneys are responsible for prosecuting violators of federal law including corrupt government officials. It is not in the interest of America to have these positions based on political patronage.
In March of 2006 Sen. Arlen Spector (R) added an obscure provision to the Patriot Act at the request of the Bush Justice Department which revised the way U.S. Attorneys are appointed. Previously the Attorney General had the power, in a situation where a U.S. Attorney post was vacated, to appoint a replacement for a period of 120 days as long as that replacement had not previously been declined appointment by the Senate. The President could appoint and the Senate could approve a permanent appointee during that 120 days. If that process didn’t take place within the prescribed time it was up to the district court to appoint the U.S. Attorney.
The revised Patriot Act no longer includes the provision requiring a Senate confirmed appointee within 120 days with the court selecting an appointee in cases of executive inaction. Now the AG can permanently select U.S. Attorneys without Senate confirmation.
The Bush Administration has been taking advantage of the new legal landscape and over the past year they have fired ten current U.S. Attorneys and used the Patriot Act provision to appoint replacements without any congressional referral or input. Some of these new prosecutors are well known as Republican Party operatives. This is a dangerous development. Will it become the new policy for presidents to clear out all of the U.S. attorneys when they take office to replace them with political cronies? The last thing we need is for elected government officials to face less scrutiny than they face now because these offices have become purely partisan in nature.
The Boston Globe:
In his 1994 US Senate run, Romney backed two gun-control measures strongly opposed by the National Rifle Association and other gun-rights groups: the Brady Bill, which imposed a five-day waiting period on gun sales, and a ban on certain assault weapons.
“That’s not going to make me the hero of the NRA,” Romney told the Boston Herald in 1994.
…
Today, as he explores a presidential bid, Romney is sending a very different message on gun issues, which are far more prominent in Republican national politics than in Massachusetts.
He now touts his work as governor to ease restrictions on gun owners. He proudly describes himself as a member of the NRA — though his campaign won’t say when he joined. And Friday, at his campaign’s request, top officials of the NRA and the National Shooting Sports Foundation led him around one of the country’s biggest gun shows.
Romney says he still backs the ban on assault weapons, but he won’t say whether he stands by the Brady Bill. And after the gun show tour, his campaign declined to say whether he would still describe himself as a supporter of tough gun laws.
As information on his previous policy positions becomes available it becomes more and more clear that Mitt Romney doesn’t really believe anything. He just really wants to be the President of the United States. Thats a little creepy.
Is Utah’s government using shady accounting methods to hide its annual growth? Click here to find out how things really work.
Utahns should be checking Utah Taxpayer (the Utah Taxpayer’s Association Blog) every single day of this years legislative session to get a better idea of how our taxes are spent.
If this is true I’ve found the candidate I’m going to stump for in the 2008 presidential race. Game over.
We couldn’t possibly have a better president than the guy known as “Dr. No“.
I’ve got to go cry many tears of joy now. More later.
