Although my last monarch took flight some time ago, I'm still up to my eyeballs in monarch activities prepping for next year AND participating in seed swaps at this time...which takes me right up to election day, just about. As far as the POTUS race goes, my regulars know already my position on where big business stands, and it ain't with Trump.
But I think this commentary is worth adding for those who blindly follow like sheep the lead of the evangelical faction supporting Trump: in terms of morality, they're supporting a guy who revels in and brags about his repeated commission of several of the Seven Deadly Sins, and the quick fix for that is the claim that he's asked for, and been granted, forgiveness...belied by his Twitter storms, so of late, his campaign management pulled his access to his own Twitter account...which amounts to evangelicals attempting to Bear False Witness out of one side of their mouths and glorifying the Ten Commandments on the other. I'm looking at you, Governor Mary Fallin and all those in support of repealing the religion money clause of the OK Constitution.
There are a couple of State Questions I feel imperative to address immediately, so I'll comment on those and post this quickly with the caveat that I'll edit this later to add commentary on other issues.
In the name of budgetary concerns as well as justice, I come out in favor of the justice system reform State Question as both concerns will be properly addressed by its passage.
I don't have that same view about the teacher's pay State Question, however, because of the weasel words incorporated in the ads aired by its proponents. They proclaim that the money won't go to administration, that it'll go into some kind of lock box, but when it comes to stating that ALL the money goes to teacher's pay, they back out of that and make the claim that it'll go to the classroom, not the teachers....so...I'm with the opponents on this one, and cite the corruption of the Enid Public Schools people as prime example of a swamp that definitely needs draining. The state legislators in charge of establishing teacher pay should find their balls and pass a better pay rate for teachers and until they do, they remain craven cowards.
Lastly (for now) but definitely not the leastly, is the Constitutional Right to Farm State Question. There are very valid points on both sides and I was on the fence for a long time on that one. After hearing all the arguments, and remembering the huge spate of family farm foreclosures in the 1980s under the Reagan administration, a situation that caused Willie Nelson to create his Farm Aid event and movement, the argument that "Oklahomans already have a right to farm" falls flat on its face. The right to farm State Question is decades too late for the 1980s, but in my view, in view of what happened in the 1980s, I hereby state that ALL STATES should have a clause that gives a constitution guarantee of a Right to Farm...so...I stand strongly in favor of State Question 777.
Further, I endorse Roland Pederson. We need more farmers and ranchers in state government, not fewer.
More to come later as time permits.
Showing posts with label In-The-News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label In-The-News. Show all posts
Monday, November 07, 2016
Monday, August 08, 2016
Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs report: Enid Public Schools shenannigans with bonds is statewide. Ready to be taxed again, Enid?
Ernie Currier wants to sell Enid on another bond he can skim; this time it's for the Kaw Pipeline water project. People who have tuned in either on cable or online to the Enid City Commission already know how all a-drool that Main Street Enid and the Ward 5 Commissioner are about their piece of that juicy pie, in the name of arts.
But just this evening, KFOR aired a segment about that Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs report about how schools have millions in the bank but pass bond issues for construction projects all the same and then whine about how bond money can't go for teachers when it's teachers Oklahoma schools need most.
When it comes to schools building new sports facilities, the term "Taj Mahal was used...remember when part of the sales pitch for the EPS bond was "world class art center"? Yeah--they don't focus on skills useful in industry because then their students would be too smart to be such suckers for their next sales pitch to pick your pockets again and again and again. Oklahomans avoid paying teachers because of teacher unions, and kids getting taught by adjunct-quality warm bodies produces the biggest suckers that fall for crap just because like in sports, you're on the Enid team, rah rah go team, bend over and let 'em have the full field of your wallets.
Sure, kids need a quality education but buildings don't teach; teachers teach. Sure, Enid needs more water WHEN it grows, but anybody going to any Enid bank already knows that if Enid were growing, the banks wouldn't have yanked the popcorn and coffee, and Bank of America would still be in town, and Roserock Bank wouldn't have needed to change its name, and Wells Fargo wouldn't show such a sudden interest in making a quick real estate buck in this city.
Yeah, I've noticed recent frequency of Wells Fargo ads in the paper, and Wells Fargo is a bank that isn't just brutal with residence property, it's a bank that takes over other banks.
WHEN Enid grows, it will need more water, but it's not growing so we don't need to take on such a huge bond debt to grease City palms NOW. I for one just don't trust this current City Commission getting its greasy hands on any of it, much less getting a juicy cut of that large pie. Vote for the thing if you've swallowed the old pitch that was used on you for the EPS bond, sucker, but as for me, I'll be happy to vote on a water bond proposal when all the faces on the City Commission are different from the ones that are there now.
Alright--certain of my fellow Republicans wanted me to weigh in on the national situation with the GOP. First, I'm going to tell my fellow local Republicans that the City government is in the mess that it's in now because you took your eye off that ball while concentrating on Washington. Thanks to your lack of vigilance in your own back yard, you let the liberals loot the City treasury and let them get away with buddy-buddy patronage as well as the government take-over of the corporation once known as PEGASYS, which was a privatization, a public-private partnership. You abandoned your principles here at home.
Conservative principles were abandoned in this supposedly conservative state on the day Oklahoma voted for foul-mouthed, anti-corporation, pro-labor Trump. I've heard just now that members of the GOP establishment won't vote for Clinton but they won't vote for Trump either, and the fact of Trump's rise was the fact that he's anti-establishment.
Said another way, your traditional conservative principles weren't persuasive to all thoe voters you thought were traditional conservatives. But you knew that when you courted the Tea Party, who thought traditional conservatives weren't conservative enough. What you're looking at is traditional support + Tea Party support put together is less than Trump support. Do the math...if you can, you who are dead set against Common Core (English plus Math). Yeah--your animus toward consortium-developed Common Core is irrational, if you'll pardon another math term there. While the world calculates circles around your head-scratching, you're why we're falling behind in jobs as well as world leadership. Without world -leading skills, you're the ones who are convinced that America can lead the world from behind the basic skills 8 ball.
As Trump proved, he loves the under-educated because they make the biggest suckers.
Seriously. You need to re-examine those things you think are important, and stop making the claim that conservative economic principles bring prosperity in the face of what's happening in Kansas and Iowa which had enough of the red to start turning blue.
There is a ray of hope here for the GOP, but you need basic math skills to grasp this one too: No primary candidate got the majority of total votes. More than half of the GOP ;in any given state did NOT vote for Trump. Oklahoma does something smarter than you do, Reince Priebus: it recognizes that a clear winner is somebody who gets 51% of all votes cast. 39% is not equal to 51%. Most of the GOP voters voted for somebody other than Trump, and all Trump won on was a bigger percentage of votes than the other candidates. NONE of the other candidates got 51% of all votes cast, so this is not a case of offering a wide choice of a "deep bench" to voters when you shouldn't have. It's a case of offering NO candidate that is a recognized strong leader.
The choices are good to have, I don't have a problem with choices. But what you have here is a leadership problem, AND the fact that most voters just aren't buying what you're selling. I should add that Trump supporters, including those in Oklahoma, think it's just fine that Trump flatters the Communist leftists with which he does business: Russia and China. The Trump GOP has turned left of Clinton.
Thursday Trupdate: GOP interventions, and now a "come to Jesus meeting" is being called by the establishment, after the primaries where "the people have spoken". Not a majority of people, mind you. Just the small band that could be called The Donald and the Trump Suckers. Trump is just one man, people. Its the numbers of people who are his followers that you gotta worry about, and you need to talk to THEM. What, you're not on speaking terms, even after you courted them election cycle after election cycle and they believed your line about how the country was right of center, and now they're supporting somebody who is left of Clinton? What planet were you on? More importantly, are you still on that planet and still need to come back down to Earth?
I'm guessing you are. Do you miss Michael Steele yet, GOP? I'll bet Priebus does.
But just this evening, KFOR aired a segment about that Oklahoma Council for Public Affairs report about how schools have millions in the bank but pass bond issues for construction projects all the same and then whine about how bond money can't go for teachers when it's teachers Oklahoma schools need most.
When it comes to schools building new sports facilities, the term "Taj Mahal was used...remember when part of the sales pitch for the EPS bond was "world class art center"? Yeah--they don't focus on skills useful in industry because then their students would be too smart to be such suckers for their next sales pitch to pick your pockets again and again and again. Oklahomans avoid paying teachers because of teacher unions, and kids getting taught by adjunct-quality warm bodies produces the biggest suckers that fall for crap just because like in sports, you're on the Enid team, rah rah go team, bend over and let 'em have the full field of your wallets.
Sure, kids need a quality education but buildings don't teach; teachers teach. Sure, Enid needs more water WHEN it grows, but anybody going to any Enid bank already knows that if Enid were growing, the banks wouldn't have yanked the popcorn and coffee, and Bank of America would still be in town, and Roserock Bank wouldn't have needed to change its name, and Wells Fargo wouldn't show such a sudden interest in making a quick real estate buck in this city.
Yeah, I've noticed recent frequency of Wells Fargo ads in the paper, and Wells Fargo is a bank that isn't just brutal with residence property, it's a bank that takes over other banks.
WHEN Enid grows, it will need more water, but it's not growing so we don't need to take on such a huge bond debt to grease City palms NOW. I for one just don't trust this current City Commission getting its greasy hands on any of it, much less getting a juicy cut of that large pie. Vote for the thing if you've swallowed the old pitch that was used on you for the EPS bond, sucker, but as for me, I'll be happy to vote on a water bond proposal when all the faces on the City Commission are different from the ones that are there now.
 |
| Hime should make a priority of visiting Enid High's University Center for the Taj Mahal that nobody voted to build or fund. That Taj Mahal was build by skimming bonds that the voter approved for other projects. |
Alright--certain of my fellow Republicans wanted me to weigh in on the national situation with the GOP. First, I'm going to tell my fellow local Republicans that the City government is in the mess that it's in now because you took your eye off that ball while concentrating on Washington. Thanks to your lack of vigilance in your own back yard, you let the liberals loot the City treasury and let them get away with buddy-buddy patronage as well as the government take-over of the corporation once known as PEGASYS, which was a privatization, a public-private partnership. You abandoned your principles here at home.
Conservative principles were abandoned in this supposedly conservative state on the day Oklahoma voted for foul-mouthed, anti-corporation, pro-labor Trump. I've heard just now that members of the GOP establishment won't vote for Clinton but they won't vote for Trump either, and the fact of Trump's rise was the fact that he's anti-establishment.
Said another way, your traditional conservative principles weren't persuasive to all thoe voters you thought were traditional conservatives. But you knew that when you courted the Tea Party, who thought traditional conservatives weren't conservative enough. What you're looking at is traditional support + Tea Party support put together is less than Trump support. Do the math...if you can, you who are dead set against Common Core (English plus Math). Yeah--your animus toward consortium-developed Common Core is irrational, if you'll pardon another math term there. While the world calculates circles around your head-scratching, you're why we're falling behind in jobs as well as world leadership. Without world -leading skills, you're the ones who are convinced that America can lead the world from behind the basic skills 8 ball.
As Trump proved, he loves the under-educated because they make the biggest suckers.
Seriously. You need to re-examine those things you think are important, and stop making the claim that conservative economic principles bring prosperity in the face of what's happening in Kansas and Iowa which had enough of the red to start turning blue.
There is a ray of hope here for the GOP, but you need basic math skills to grasp this one too: No primary candidate got the majority of total votes. More than half of the GOP ;in any given state did NOT vote for Trump. Oklahoma does something smarter than you do, Reince Priebus: it recognizes that a clear winner is somebody who gets 51% of all votes cast. 39% is not equal to 51%. Most of the GOP voters voted for somebody other than Trump, and all Trump won on was a bigger percentage of votes than the other candidates. NONE of the other candidates got 51% of all votes cast, so this is not a case of offering a wide choice of a "deep bench" to voters when you shouldn't have. It's a case of offering NO candidate that is a recognized strong leader.
The choices are good to have, I don't have a problem with choices. But what you have here is a leadership problem, AND the fact that most voters just aren't buying what you're selling. I should add that Trump supporters, including those in Oklahoma, think it's just fine that Trump flatters the Communist leftists with which he does business: Russia and China. The Trump GOP has turned left of Clinton.
Thursday Trupdate: GOP interventions, and now a "come to Jesus meeting" is being called by the establishment, after the primaries where "the people have spoken". Not a majority of people, mind you. Just the small band that could be called The Donald and the Trump Suckers. Trump is just one man, people. Its the numbers of people who are his followers that you gotta worry about, and you need to talk to THEM. What, you're not on speaking terms, even after you courted them election cycle after election cycle and they believed your line about how the country was right of center, and now they're supporting somebody who is left of Clinton? What planet were you on? More importantly, are you still on that planet and still need to come back down to Earth?
I'm guessing you are. Do you miss Michael Steele yet, GOP? I'll bet Priebus does.
Sunday, July 17, 2016
City of Enid loves the poorly edumacated too.
What prompts this post isn't just 2 articles in the paper, one about how Garfield/Enid lost millions of retail sales tax money AGAIN and how Ernie Currier tries to convince us all that voting for a tax hike to pay for the Kaw Pipeline project is the thing to do because Enid's median income (not average, mind you) is $44K annually and they spend 18% of that income on taxable goods...but also because of an airing of a book discussion on CSPAN BookTV by The Mathematical Association of America on the topic of Common Core controversies. As you all are probably aware (probability! mathematics!) Oklahoma and Enid take an extremely dim view of Common Core standards. If Enidiots were mathematically literate, they'd spot this mathematical subterfuge committed by Currier right off the bat, and underscored by a subsequent article about how we're losing revenue on those same taxable goods in terms of millions.
The mathematically illiterate make the best suckers.
The main reason why people choose to avoid average and go to median is because there's a huge disparity between the lowest factors in a statistical set of numbers and the highest...so...going for a median instead of an average in the scenario where there are a lot of very low numbers and a few very high numbers will give you an artificially higher number than if you averaged the set.
Currier is on the public schools board. The same school board that lobbied like hell to pass a school bond issue we don't need but provides plenty of pork for bond skimmers to line their buddies' pockets with on additional construction projects we don't get to vote on, like the high school's University Center. Nobody voted for that structure and it was funded by raiding the "savings" on other bonds. There ya go--that's your anti-Common Core substandard Enidiot brand of mathematics for ya.
Post-Commission session UPDATE: We now know the specific names of the Commissioners who have no problem with questionable ethics--The Three Amigos who attempted to railroad the City Manager, of course, plus Tammy Wilson. What I said about Santa Fe NM is true, of course; I've been there in person a number of times while the guy who made the presentation in the Study Session said all he knows about it is what's on its website. It figures, doesn't it. Scottsdale has been trying to be a Santa Fe knock-off for over a decade now, and it's done a fairly reasonable job of it, as has Santa Fe's nearer neighbor, Taos NM.
New Mexico is breathtaking mountains mixed with desert and it's called the Land of Enchantment for good reason, especially where artists are concerned. Oklahoma is located in the Great Plains, which is, well, plain. Even if Georgia O'Keefe were still alive, she wouldn't have fallen in love with Enid Oklahoma. I'm sure of it.
On the other hand, Taos city government has a lot in common with the Enid City Commission, apparently...
Below is a fence in Santa Fe that I know the City of Enid would say is an ordinance violation...if it was in Enid...
Yup--and I even recognized some photos shown at the Enid Study Session as originating specifically on Santa Fe's Canyon Road.
Near the bottom of Canyon Road, going up...through windshield glare...
Notice the whirly-gigs on the left of the picture. Here's a closer look at that:
Now, what the top of Canyon Road looks like...
You see correctly; Canyon Road has a Gypsy Alley. And here's what that looks like:
So then--you don't believe me when I said that Sotheby's deals with the commercial real estate in Santa Fe? Why don't you call Sotheby realtor Darlene Street yourself and ask her about it, hm?
If you ever happen to be out in that neighborhood, I also recommend the downtown plaza, and 'way further out of town, the Earthship.
The Wikipedia page about this proclaims that its entry has issues with "weasel words" but I couldn't find anything on it that went askew from what I observed in person. It's truly a technological wonder.
====================================================
August UPDATE: Drove by the old Miles Music building just off of Van Buren and noticed a Berkshire Hathaway Real Estate sign there, and laughed my arse off. Definitely a first for Enid Oklahoma, a day after somebody at state level proclaimed to the City Commission's Study Session that there are 4 national-level artists and ...get this...Enid is growing. That poor misinformed miss didn't pay attention to how the banks in Enid are reducing services large and small, including curtailing their traditional Friday popcorn and, in SNB's case, coffee as well. As for Miles Music's account with the liberal Clinton-supporting but still high dollar Berkshire Hathaway, well...they're still going to have to find a BUYER in Enid that can handle it. Besides, nothing says "conservatives need not apply, your money isn't good enough" like a Berkshire-Hathaway real estate sign. Like I said at a previous City Commission session: somebody's delusional. Seriously delusional.
The mathematically illiterate make the best suckers.
The main reason why people choose to avoid average and go to median is because there's a huge disparity between the lowest factors in a statistical set of numbers and the highest...so...going for a median instead of an average in the scenario where there are a lot of very low numbers and a few very high numbers will give you an artificially higher number than if you averaged the set.
Currier is on the public schools board. The same school board that lobbied like hell to pass a school bond issue we don't need but provides plenty of pork for bond skimmers to line their buddies' pockets with on additional construction projects we don't get to vote on, like the high school's University Center. Nobody voted for that structure and it was funded by raiding the "savings" on other bonds. There ya go--that's your anti-Common Core substandard Enidiot brand of mathematics for ya.
Post-Commission session UPDATE: We now know the specific names of the Commissioners who have no problem with questionable ethics--The Three Amigos who attempted to railroad the City Manager, of course, plus Tammy Wilson. What I said about Santa Fe NM is true, of course; I've been there in person a number of times while the guy who made the presentation in the Study Session said all he knows about it is what's on its website. It figures, doesn't it. Scottsdale has been trying to be a Santa Fe knock-off for over a decade now, and it's done a fairly reasonable job of it, as has Santa Fe's nearer neighbor, Taos NM.
New Mexico is breathtaking mountains mixed with desert and it's called the Land of Enchantment for good reason, especially where artists are concerned. Oklahoma is located in the Great Plains, which is, well, plain. Even if Georgia O'Keefe were still alive, she wouldn't have fallen in love with Enid Oklahoma. I'm sure of it.
On the other hand, Taos city government has a lot in common with the Enid City Commission, apparently...
Below is a fence in Santa Fe that I know the City of Enid would say is an ordinance violation...if it was in Enid...
Yup--and I even recognized some photos shown at the Enid Study Session as originating specifically on Santa Fe's Canyon Road.
Near the bottom of Canyon Road, going up...through windshield glare...
Notice the whirly-gigs on the left of the picture. Here's a closer look at that:
Now, what the top of Canyon Road looks like...
You see correctly; Canyon Road has a Gypsy Alley. And here's what that looks like:
So then--you don't believe me when I said that Sotheby's deals with the commercial real estate in Santa Fe? Why don't you call Sotheby realtor Darlene Street yourself and ask her about it, hm?
If you ever happen to be out in that neighborhood, I also recommend the downtown plaza, and 'way further out of town, the Earthship.
The Wikipedia page about this proclaims that its entry has issues with "weasel words" but I couldn't find anything on it that went askew from what I observed in person. It's truly a technological wonder.
August UPDATE: Drove by the old Miles Music building just off of Van Buren and noticed a Berkshire Hathaway Real Estate sign there, and laughed my arse off. Definitely a first for Enid Oklahoma, a day after somebody at state level proclaimed to the City Commission's Study Session that there are 4 national-level artists and ...get this...Enid is growing. That poor misinformed miss didn't pay attention to how the banks in Enid are reducing services large and small, including curtailing their traditional Friday popcorn and, in SNB's case, coffee as well. As for Miles Music's account with the liberal Clinton-supporting but still high dollar Berkshire Hathaway, well...they're still going to have to find a BUYER in Enid that can handle it. Besides, nothing says "conservatives need not apply, your money isn't good enough" like a Berkshire-Hathaway real estate sign. Like I said at a previous City Commission session: somebody's delusional. Seriously delusional.
Monday, June 27, 2016
Despite confessing faith, Enid Commission members don't know right from wrong
Quite a headline in the Monday newspaper, huh:
This is the second article on this subject, though; Sunday's article merited not only front page headline but inside, a full page spread. So where was the newspaper months earlier, hm? Like I said--it's more a lapdog than a watchdog, and this particular issue isn't one that the newspaper can ignore anymore. I will have more commentary on this at a later date, but for now I'll say that my regular readers already know that I was on to this corrupt bunch a long long LONG time ago, a time when the newspaper provided cover for this rotten bunch, and now they've been reported by the paper to opine that they need ethics guidelines, not their respective churches, to tell them what's right and what's wrong. The longer they talk, the more of a disgrace each Commissioner is to the respective churches they attend; they are, after all, the same people who voted to approve a rule that evangelicals should be required to pay for a vendor's permit in order to set up downtown on a First Friday despite First Amendment protections in that regard. Watch this space.
July 8 UPDATE: Those of you who watched the City Commission yesterday already know the move I made on this. For those of you who didn't, here's the gist: I opened my comments to the Commission with a continuation of the comment I made on curious City economics, how even the new Walmart neighborhood market store didn't make a difference in the millions in retail sale revenues that were lost, and all the current construction going on proceeds without any visible means of (financial) support, while Kingfisher consistently gains each tax period...and there's something that's just cockeyed about that. I then pointed out that anyone who needs ethics guidelines to inform them what's right and what's wrong is a disgrace to the church they go to, as messing around with somebody's spouse is just plain ole wrong.
What's worse, though, is that the Commissioner in question enlisted the service of the City Attorney to execute a warrant to the Police Department on a personal matter, and I said that this was a clear abuse of office. The City Attorney should have known better than to use HER office to execute ANY action regarding a personal matter that is NOT City business. The news I'm going to break with this UPDATE is that I'm going to file an OBA complaint on this attorney. She should have known better but didn't and participated in her own unethical conduct and facilitated the conduct of the Commissioner. There exists NO excuse or mitigating circumstance for the conduct of either person. The conduct of the City attorney was just as unethical as that of the Commissioner.
This is the second article on this subject, though; Sunday's article merited not only front page headline but inside, a full page spread. So where was the newspaper months earlier, hm? Like I said--it's more a lapdog than a watchdog, and this particular issue isn't one that the newspaper can ignore anymore. I will have more commentary on this at a later date, but for now I'll say that my regular readers already know that I was on to this corrupt bunch a long long LONG time ago, a time when the newspaper provided cover for this rotten bunch, and now they've been reported by the paper to opine that they need ethics guidelines, not their respective churches, to tell them what's right and what's wrong. The longer they talk, the more of a disgrace each Commissioner is to the respective churches they attend; they are, after all, the same people who voted to approve a rule that evangelicals should be required to pay for a vendor's permit in order to set up downtown on a First Friday despite First Amendment protections in that regard. Watch this space.
July 8 UPDATE: Those of you who watched the City Commission yesterday already know the move I made on this. For those of you who didn't, here's the gist: I opened my comments to the Commission with a continuation of the comment I made on curious City economics, how even the new Walmart neighborhood market store didn't make a difference in the millions in retail sale revenues that were lost, and all the current construction going on proceeds without any visible means of (financial) support, while Kingfisher consistently gains each tax period...and there's something that's just cockeyed about that. I then pointed out that anyone who needs ethics guidelines to inform them what's right and what's wrong is a disgrace to the church they go to, as messing around with somebody's spouse is just plain ole wrong.
What's worse, though, is that the Commissioner in question enlisted the service of the City Attorney to execute a warrant to the Police Department on a personal matter, and I said that this was a clear abuse of office. The City Attorney should have known better than to use HER office to execute ANY action regarding a personal matter that is NOT City business. The news I'm going to break with this UPDATE is that I'm going to file an OBA complaint on this attorney. She should have known better but didn't and participated in her own unethical conduct and facilitated the conduct of the Commissioner. There exists NO excuse or mitigating circumstance for the conduct of either person. The conduct of the City attorney was just as unethical as that of the Commissioner.
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Orlando: It's time for the NRA to step up to do proper duty
I've heard the rumblings: I'm not commenting about the Orlando shooting because it's likely I'll run for office again and I dare not step on those particular Oklahoma power toes and I'm reluctant to speak out against Islam because I have Muslim friends. Au contraire.
Partisan politics these days take left-right extremes and are themselves run by right-left extremists. I've always been an independent who doesn't fit in the pigeonhole labeled "moderate" and I don't believe any voter owes allegiance to the success of either party, and that voting is NOT an entitlement program for either party. Dems howl because of the alleged "pro-NRA" position I have in agreeing with Sanders that holding manufacturers responsible for the dead people directly resulting from the use of their products is "a bridge too far" and Reps howl that I agree with a Socialist on something. Both howlers are extremists in MY book.
However, the NRA position that we already have too many gun laws is bogus considering all the loopholes their lobbyists put in aforementioned gun laws before passage, and while they've been very good at howling about an absolute interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, they've also been very good at telling lawmakers what they can NOT do but very short on proposing what they CAN do, and it's high time they step up to be part of the solution.
Come on, NRA--propose legislation yourself that:
1) is capable of differentiating who is a good guy and who is a bad guy before either of them buy guns;
2) is capable of better product tracking than you thusfar have approved of because tracking of any sort does NOT infringe on the 2nd Amendment.
3) establish exactly the type of Due Process you whine about not being there when the Constitution approves of Probable Cause as being proper Due Process prior to formal charges and a formal trial.
4) be better at being constructive about what our proper options could be, that we CAN do, than whining about what we all can't do for a change.
Your whining without offering a solution is a part of the problem, which thusfar precluded your being any kind of solution. That must change. You've regarded the 2nd Amendment as more sacrosanct than the 1st Amendment, which does have reasonable regulation attached, such as outlawing libel, slander, and fraud as NOT protected speech (compared to regarding ALL speech as protected). The 2nd Amendment is an AMENDMENT, not a Commandment.
June 19 UPDATE: You guessed it--I attended another time traveler convention. Just canNOT beat Bartlesville OK at this time of year.
You know it.
Partisan politics these days take left-right extremes and are themselves run by right-left extremists. I've always been an independent who doesn't fit in the pigeonhole labeled "moderate" and I don't believe any voter owes allegiance to the success of either party, and that voting is NOT an entitlement program for either party. Dems howl because of the alleged "pro-NRA" position I have in agreeing with Sanders that holding manufacturers responsible for the dead people directly resulting from the use of their products is "a bridge too far" and Reps howl that I agree with a Socialist on something. Both howlers are extremists in MY book.
However, the NRA position that we already have too many gun laws is bogus considering all the loopholes their lobbyists put in aforementioned gun laws before passage, and while they've been very good at howling about an absolute interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, they've also been very good at telling lawmakers what they can NOT do but very short on proposing what they CAN do, and it's high time they step up to be part of the solution.
Come on, NRA--propose legislation yourself that:
1) is capable of differentiating who is a good guy and who is a bad guy before either of them buy guns;
2) is capable of better product tracking than you thusfar have approved of because tracking of any sort does NOT infringe on the 2nd Amendment.
3) establish exactly the type of Due Process you whine about not being there when the Constitution approves of Probable Cause as being proper Due Process prior to formal charges and a formal trial.
4) be better at being constructive about what our proper options could be, that we CAN do, than whining about what we all can't do for a change.
Coming up with a plan THAT WORKS is 100% ON YOU.
Your whining without offering a solution is a part of the problem, which thusfar precluded your being any kind of solution. That must change. You've regarded the 2nd Amendment as more sacrosanct than the 1st Amendment, which does have reasonable regulation attached, such as outlawing libel, slander, and fraud as NOT protected speech (compared to regarding ALL speech as protected). The 2nd Amendment is an AMENDMENT, not a Commandment.
June 19 UPDATE: You guessed it--I attended another time traveler convention. Just canNOT beat Bartlesville OK at this time of year.
You know it.
Thursday, June 09, 2016
There's nothing more inevitable than the predictable.
Yeah, if Team Hillary would have breathed the word "inevitable", they might have jinxed things--so they didn't. But we saw this one coming several miles away, though, didn't we. Oh, for the sake of the party, they must unify...and we saw that effort coming too, didn't we. Trouble is, it won't wash with Sanders supporters who weren't Democrat to begin with...or...were Dem but were disaffected and, to be quite frank, were in the mood for a political revolution, which is what Sanders was selling, and which they bought into. No amount of "for the sake of the party" is going to hold water, and we saw that coming, too.
And so it has transpired that Sanders talked amicably with the POTUS, and, apparently on the phone with the presumptive Dem nominee, and word went out from the Dems that things would work out just fine, and then Sanders continued to DC to continue to fight the Dem establishment. Well, well, well. Only one side is singing Kumbaya.
When running for office, Sanders amassed quite a support base, even if he's on the short end of the arithmetic stick, and Sanders supporters aren't chopped liver. This is the sort of realization that has been dawning on the City of Enid Commission of late, too: a person who runs for office but loses still has supporters, and those supporters aren't chopped liver either, and the candidate, win or lose, still has an obligation of sorts to deliver what's been pledged to the people who pledged their support. Those are the people who, given their druthers, wouldn't even think of voting for the person who won if the alternative was to be had.
And Sanders have a lot of supporters, none of whom are chopped liver, Dem loyalists, or supporters of the presumptive, so there's nothing to unify here, folks--the Dems who are Dems are already unified with their Ms. Inevitable, whom they've spent years grooming for the job. Nobody else has enjoyed the level of grooming for the job than Ms. Inevitable. So we saw this one coming several miles away, didn't we--it was so predictable, wasn't it.
The big surprise was the GOP, who were the biggest whiners about Dem superdelegates but given the rise of Trump, are starting to come around to the Dem way of thinking on that. Who'd-a thunk it?
In Enid Monarch news, the butterfly weed (Asclepias Tuberosa) seedlings I started in February, now turned loose in the yard, not only have acquired an inch or so of additional height but two of them have developed very small flower buds. Still no sign of monarchs yet, but they are still congregated in the upper northern tier of the U.S. and lower regions of Canada--still too early for them to drop south. They typically show up in Enid in late July/early August, and it's in the first week of August that Monarch Watch starts shipping its monarch tagging kits to track their journey south. Last weekend I spent some quality time in Alva for their arts festival and did the Auto Tour of the Great Salt Plains Reserve, examined their milkweeds (mainly Showy Milkweed) and found them to be as untouched by either aphid or monarch as mine were. No sign of the Stem Weevil up there, though, and I have plenty of those attacking my Honeyvine.
As I've pointed out so many times before, mainly what's available around here by way of wild milkweeds isn't even in the Asclepias family at all--it's Cynanchum Laeve, aka Honeyvine, and in the process of trying to maintain a properly urban mowed lawn, I discovered something else I could do with those because they're by far more flexible to work with than woody-stemmed milkweeds of the Asclepias family. I'll be posting more about that at the bottom of my separate Monarch Project blog page later.
And so it has transpired that Sanders talked amicably with the POTUS, and, apparently on the phone with the presumptive Dem nominee, and word went out from the Dems that things would work out just fine, and then Sanders continued to DC to continue to fight the Dem establishment. Well, well, well. Only one side is singing Kumbaya.
When running for office, Sanders amassed quite a support base, even if he's on the short end of the arithmetic stick, and Sanders supporters aren't chopped liver. This is the sort of realization that has been dawning on the City of Enid Commission of late, too: a person who runs for office but loses still has supporters, and those supporters aren't chopped liver either, and the candidate, win or lose, still has an obligation of sorts to deliver what's been pledged to the people who pledged their support. Those are the people who, given their druthers, wouldn't even think of voting for the person who won if the alternative was to be had.
And Sanders have a lot of supporters, none of whom are chopped liver, Dem loyalists, or supporters of the presumptive, so there's nothing to unify here, folks--the Dems who are Dems are already unified with their Ms. Inevitable, whom they've spent years grooming for the job. Nobody else has enjoyed the level of grooming for the job than Ms. Inevitable. So we saw this one coming several miles away, didn't we--it was so predictable, wasn't it.
The big surprise was the GOP, who were the biggest whiners about Dem superdelegates but given the rise of Trump, are starting to come around to the Dem way of thinking on that. Who'd-a thunk it?
In Enid Monarch news, the butterfly weed (Asclepias Tuberosa) seedlings I started in February, now turned loose in the yard, not only have acquired an inch or so of additional height but two of them have developed very small flower buds. Still no sign of monarchs yet, but they are still congregated in the upper northern tier of the U.S. and lower regions of Canada--still too early for them to drop south. They typically show up in Enid in late July/early August, and it's in the first week of August that Monarch Watch starts shipping its monarch tagging kits to track their journey south. Last weekend I spent some quality time in Alva for their arts festival and did the Auto Tour of the Great Salt Plains Reserve, examined their milkweeds (mainly Showy Milkweed) and found them to be as untouched by either aphid or monarch as mine were. No sign of the Stem Weevil up there, though, and I have plenty of those attacking my Honeyvine.
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| Still very short for a first-year youngster, it's nonetheless putting on flower buds on the right-hand branch, and developing that classic orange tinge of Butterfly Weed blossoms. |
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| Another Butterfly Weed seedling started this February is quite a bit taller than the one in the previous pic, but it, too, is putting on flower buds in the tip of this one spire--but they're all still green. |
As I've pointed out so many times before, mainly what's available around here by way of wild milkweeds isn't even in the Asclepias family at all--it's Cynanchum Laeve, aka Honeyvine, and in the process of trying to maintain a properly urban mowed lawn, I discovered something else I could do with those because they're by far more flexible to work with than woody-stemmed milkweeds of the Asclepias family. I'll be posting more about that at the bottom of my separate Monarch Project blog page later.
Sunday, April 17, 2016
GOP leaves Fortune 500 no other choice: Hillary Clinton
The amazing failure of Jeb to get the primary nod, what remains is a GOP contender who has now flat out admitted that he agrees with Bernie Sanders about big banks and large international corporations (includes Big Oil, doesn't it); Trump rails against the shipping of jobs overseas as Cruz does (a big corporation standard practice you can thank Ronald Reagan for) even as he kneels in worship at Bonnie Ronnie's feet; in today's talking head shows, now Kasich says he's only for small businesses, not the big ones. So now being a super-successful mega-business isn't to be as celebrated as being rich in the GOP, leaving none of the mega-donors (or their individuals who run them) anywhere in the GOP to throw their money at or otherwise support.
With Bernie Sanders coming out squarely against millionaires, billionaires and big banks, there's only one candidate remaining worthy of corporate (business and individuals) support, and that's the one they've been paying the big bucks for in speeches, right?
Do the math, people.
With Bernie Sanders coming out squarely against millionaires, billionaires and big banks, there's only one candidate remaining worthy of corporate (business and individuals) support, and that's the one they've been paying the big bucks for in speeches, right?
Do the math, people.
Monday, March 21, 2016
The Enid Event Center downtown is haunted by 2 dead businesses + "retreat" edition UPDATE at bottom.
Once upon a time, what seems to be like forever ago, Enid had its own non-government TV station that was actually broadcasting on actual broadcast air (not cable). Those who remember the ghost of its deceased owner, Rex Faulkner, will also remember how the station was before the station was sold off. Yeah--in the name of desperate fund raising, it presumed to go into competition with an east side business, now also deceased: Walls Bargain Center. And Walls was an inventory liquidation sale outlet, one of a major chain of stores, that eventually decided that the business of that genre wasn't significant enough in Enid to warrant staying open, and so it permanently closed. The chain still has successful stores elsewhere in Oklahoma--just not in Enid anymore.
Liquidation sales was the essence of the Walls business model; it was not the business model of KXOK and what KXOK did was out of fund-raising desperation. Fast forward to 2016, and we get to see both ghosts of businesses past on cable now, in this form:
Like I said--the Enid Event Center is haunted, and not by just one ghost.
That's Enid for ya--keeping it classy. Perish the thought that Enid should EVER be too classy to be your friendly neighborhood junk peddler.
Successful Walls business locations across Oklahoma:
They're just not successful in Enid. I wonder why.
Seriously ponder why Eskimo Joe's doesn't want to come to Enid except around Christmas time, why the New China buffet closed and Pizza Hut moved AWAY from Owen K. Garriott (Route 412). We don't have a Denny's anymore, and there's a reason for that, too. Still wanna hide behind the "Enid's growing" declaration that you got suckered into for purposes of passing that Enid Public Schools bond while you're too scared to notice that Enid claims to be growing while it's losing sales tax money hand over fist at the same time?
How does a community grow into more people buying stuff, and lose sales tax money at the same time, people? Do the math. Oh--that's right: the only math Enid Public Schools ever taught was the math it also claimed you'd never use in your life after you graduate. That's why no one on the City Commission knows how to draw a line from Point A in Grant County to Point B in Kingfisher County across Garfield County--that would be Euclidean Geometry.
The failure of Enid Public Schools to value, let alone teach, mathematics is costing the City of Enid actual big money, people. I don't mean the Vanhooser Basic Arithmetic, folks--I mean the mathematics from which analytical skills come. The City of Enid is looking at a list of word problems it has no clue how to figure out because it was taught that what you learn in math class is stuff you'll never use after you graduate. Those youngsters you think are going to learn coding by osmosis or something aren't going to be able to cut it in coding without analytical skills and yes--mathematics. You know that Right To Farm bill contemplated by the Oklahoma Congress, the one that DEMANDS that farming be based on science? You need math skills for that, even to be a farmer...so...the kids you're sending to Enid Public Schools won't even qualify for a farmer's job when they graduate. Picking produce next to an illegal immigrant, maybe, but not farming.
=====================================================
In other news, my milkweed kids are coming along quite nicely in their waterbottle containers, as you can see by this Ferry Morse Butterfly Weed seedling:
I'll be posting others on my 2016 Monarch blog page.
Saturday UPDATE, City of Enid's 5-grand "retreat" edition: ....but first....on the portion of this post where I address how much Enid Public Schools is actually costing the City by failing to put importance on mathematics as distinguished from arithmetic...I was doing some research on the origins of Common Core, despised by conservatives who USED TO be the ones complaining about how the Japanese were eating Detroit's lunch in the car market in the 1990s, how they were taking over the American auto market. The talkingpoint line used back then was "American children have computer games--Japanese kids have homework". It seems that Oklahoma conservatives in particular have a short attention span when it comes to being "pro business" at a time when corporations found American students sub-standard compared to the students elsewhere across the globe.
Now, Trump might whine about how Carrier and other businesses took American jobs overseas, but it's overseas where corporations find competent workers, and that's the same reason we have special visas for foreigners to come to the U.S. to work at U.S. jobs, and (voila!) businesses that contemplate moving to Enid also insist on the construction of apartment complexes so that they can import qualified staff instead of hiring unqualified locals. High quality jobs demand high levels of competency and a near-exclusive fine arts focus of Enid Public Schools just won't cut that mustard, folks.
Oklahoma hates Common Core because it knows it can't possibly measure up to international competency standards while it continues to whine about how America needs to be great again thinking that mathematic illiteracy is great. The City of Enid had to hire an expert from Tulsa because there's no such thing as an Enid-grown expert. Dwell on that, folks. And now we have a City Commission that has "retreats" far afield from Enid because even in the City Commission's own view, Enid isn't good enough to stay in.
Dwell on that, folks. Dwell on that a long, long time. It might eventually dawn on you that Enid can't afford to permit ANY of the current City Commission to run for re-election unchallenged.
Liquidation sales was the essence of the Walls business model; it was not the business model of KXOK and what KXOK did was out of fund-raising desperation. Fast forward to 2016, and we get to see both ghosts of businesses past on cable now, in this form:
Like I said--the Enid Event Center is haunted, and not by just one ghost.
That's Enid for ya--keeping it classy. Perish the thought that Enid should EVER be too classy to be your friendly neighborhood junk peddler.
Successful Walls business locations across Oklahoma:
Seriously ponder why Eskimo Joe's doesn't want to come to Enid except around Christmas time, why the New China buffet closed and Pizza Hut moved AWAY from Owen K. Garriott (Route 412). We don't have a Denny's anymore, and there's a reason for that, too. Still wanna hide behind the "Enid's growing" declaration that you got suckered into for purposes of passing that Enid Public Schools bond while you're too scared to notice that Enid claims to be growing while it's losing sales tax money hand over fist at the same time?
How does a community grow into more people buying stuff, and lose sales tax money at the same time, people? Do the math. Oh--that's right: the only math Enid Public Schools ever taught was the math it also claimed you'd never use in your life after you graduate. That's why no one on the City Commission knows how to draw a line from Point A in Grant County to Point B in Kingfisher County across Garfield County--that would be Euclidean Geometry.
The failure of Enid Public Schools to value, let alone teach, mathematics is costing the City of Enid actual big money, people. I don't mean the Vanhooser Basic Arithmetic, folks--I mean the mathematics from which analytical skills come. The City of Enid is looking at a list of word problems it has no clue how to figure out because it was taught that what you learn in math class is stuff you'll never use after you graduate. Those youngsters you think are going to learn coding by osmosis or something aren't going to be able to cut it in coding without analytical skills and yes--mathematics. You know that Right To Farm bill contemplated by the Oklahoma Congress, the one that DEMANDS that farming be based on science? You need math skills for that, even to be a farmer...so...the kids you're sending to Enid Public Schools won't even qualify for a farmer's job when they graduate. Picking produce next to an illegal immigrant, maybe, but not farming.
=====================================================
In other news, my milkweed kids are coming along quite nicely in their waterbottle containers, as you can see by this Ferry Morse Butterfly Weed seedling:
I'll be posting others on my 2016 Monarch blog page.
Saturday UPDATE, City of Enid's 5-grand "retreat" edition: ....but first....on the portion of this post where I address how much Enid Public Schools is actually costing the City by failing to put importance on mathematics as distinguished from arithmetic...I was doing some research on the origins of Common Core, despised by conservatives who USED TO be the ones complaining about how the Japanese were eating Detroit's lunch in the car market in the 1990s, how they were taking over the American auto market. The talkingpoint line used back then was "American children have computer games--Japanese kids have homework". It seems that Oklahoma conservatives in particular have a short attention span when it comes to being "pro business" at a time when corporations found American students sub-standard compared to the students elsewhere across the globe.
Now, Trump might whine about how Carrier and other businesses took American jobs overseas, but it's overseas where corporations find competent workers, and that's the same reason we have special visas for foreigners to come to the U.S. to work at U.S. jobs, and (voila!) businesses that contemplate moving to Enid also insist on the construction of apartment complexes so that they can import qualified staff instead of hiring unqualified locals. High quality jobs demand high levels of competency and a near-exclusive fine arts focus of Enid Public Schools just won't cut that mustard, folks.
Oklahoma hates Common Core because it knows it can't possibly measure up to international competency standards while it continues to whine about how America needs to be great again thinking that mathematic illiteracy is great. The City of Enid had to hire an expert from Tulsa because there's no such thing as an Enid-grown expert. Dwell on that, folks. And now we have a City Commission that has "retreats" far afield from Enid because even in the City Commission's own view, Enid isn't good enough to stay in.
Dwell on that, folks. Dwell on that a long, long time. It might eventually dawn on you that Enid can't afford to permit ANY of the current City Commission to run for re-election unchallenged.
Friday, March 18, 2016
Here we go yet again--the audience is invoked to call the shots for Dish, NBC Universal re: MSNBC
Media moguls at Dish and Comcast don't agree on Comcast's fee hike for MSNBC and now both run ads aimed at the audience to care whether or not Dish should pay the higher fee to continue to carry MSNBC. And as was the case in Viacom vs Suddenlink, both sides overestimate their value to their audiences. There's a bit of a spin on that, and that is Comcast's muscle over MSNBC and its trend to be a liberal-leaning media entity; Comcast doesn't care for MSNBC's leanings, seeking to overhaul it instead and could actually use the artificially dwindled audience/ratings numbers as a good excuse to outright kill off the entity if it sees fit.
And so both are running ads on MSNBC encouraging the audience to either fight Dish in favor of the rate hike or fight Comcast's rate hike. Here's the deal, though--Fox has always crowed about how it always beats MSNBC in ratings on any given day, any given quarter, any given year and the truth of this is based on the fact that Fox is always provided to every cable viewer in every state of the union as part of the basic cable package. MSNBC is part of a basic cable package only in some states but not all of them--ratings comparisons are not legit in the first place because of this. What's going to happen if Dish drops MSNBC is that it gives Comcast a bigger reason to gut the thing. But given the quirks of availability in basic cable, that's not going to work well either.
We're going to see more of these rate hike disputes, declares the Wall Street Journal. As long as web TV makes further inroads into the broader audience eyeball count, both Dish and cable are going to see declines in revenues from their audiences making cost-cutting necessary; this may very well lead to the eventual extinction of both types of entities with universal access to content would be the world wide web.
Bottom line: the audience is who determines the bottom line in all cases. All major corporations remain at the mercy of the audiences, as well they should.
Denver Business Journal's other article on new Dish vs NBCUniversal lawsuit.
And so both are running ads on MSNBC encouraging the audience to either fight Dish in favor of the rate hike or fight Comcast's rate hike. Here's the deal, though--Fox has always crowed about how it always beats MSNBC in ratings on any given day, any given quarter, any given year and the truth of this is based on the fact that Fox is always provided to every cable viewer in every state of the union as part of the basic cable package. MSNBC is part of a basic cable package only in some states but not all of them--ratings comparisons are not legit in the first place because of this. What's going to happen if Dish drops MSNBC is that it gives Comcast a bigger reason to gut the thing. But given the quirks of availability in basic cable, that's not going to work well either.
We're going to see more of these rate hike disputes, declares the Wall Street Journal. As long as web TV makes further inroads into the broader audience eyeball count, both Dish and cable are going to see declines in revenues from their audiences making cost-cutting necessary; this may very well lead to the eventual extinction of both types of entities with universal access to content would be the world wide web.
Bottom line: the audience is who determines the bottom line in all cases. All major corporations remain at the mercy of the audiences, as well they should.
Denver Business Journal's other article on new Dish vs NBCUniversal lawsuit.
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| From Deadline Hollywood |
Sunday, March 13, 2016
To admit responsibility is to admit liabilty--the Trump riots
When it's Sunday, it's Meet the press' stupid questions, even on CNN's Reliable Sources.
Whatever else you might think of The Donald, one must admit that the man knows his media and his audience as well as how his audience translates into ratings and how the ratings break down into audience demographics. With that said, he's fully aware of how he gets free press coverage stepping around whatever remains of the Fairness Doctrine after Republicans have routinely gutted the thing. Whether you think this is a mark of brilliance or the indelible mark of a weasel, that's up to you.
So when the analysts point out that fellow Republican candidates agree with liberal media presenters that schtuff happens only at Trump rallies therefore Trump is responsible and one presenter asks Trump point blank if he should admit responsibility, did the presenter seriously expect Trump to do exactly that? COME FRIGGIN ON ALREADY--GEEEEEEEEZZZ!!!
The question doesn't make Trump look bad--it makes the questioner look like a blithering idiot.
And there's this: both major parties engage in "dirty tricks" campaigns against each other and against their internal insurgents. BOTH of them do this, and correctly predict what the press is going to do when schtuff happens.
Don't get me wrong--I think The Donald does in fact bring out the thusfar stifled violent racist elements that, when left to their own devices, would prefer to go back to the "good ole days" of lynching. But I also think both parties aren't innocent in setting the stage for the purpose of painting that picture to force a conclusion among voters. It's what they've done since time immemorial and it's what they spend money to do. Just ask Ralph Nader.
=================================
Quick Addendum: Just as I hit the Publish button, some gal speaking at the Tucson book festival, just before Ari Beriman took to the mic, said that more people are registering as Independent voters because more people don't like either party. Well, there ya go. I'll buy that...but...they're 'way too late to head off this current train-wreck-in-progress. Chalk this up to shoulda-woulda-coulda-if-only.
==================================
Another Quick Addendum: Why do I rip into "liberal media" when, elsewhere on this blog, I've clearly stated that I'm a liberal registered Republican? I've also stated that I'm an Eisenhower Republican and do take exception to Eisenhower's deportation thing, though, as I recognize that it's American businesses that have relied on people who came here illegally and mention in the same breath that the immigration system is broken and it's a broken system causing all the heartache...and do NOT think the Trump Wall is any kind of good idea.
It's like this, folks--Democrats consider me the enemy, and Republican conservatives share that view; what I've always been is someone who sees the pros and cons of both sides and I refuse to play party loyalty games, which is what all that partisan policy crap really boils down to. This homey never played that. Ever.
Seriously, Republicans--didn't your so-called "conservative movement" involve voting on principles? Where do you hide your principles when you take a loyalty oath to support the Republican candidate who wins the nomination no matter who it is, hm? That's not voting on your principles when the nominee goes against those same principles, is it.
Whatever else you might think of The Donald, one must admit that the man knows his media and his audience as well as how his audience translates into ratings and how the ratings break down into audience demographics. With that said, he's fully aware of how he gets free press coverage stepping around whatever remains of the Fairness Doctrine after Republicans have routinely gutted the thing. Whether you think this is a mark of brilliance or the indelible mark of a weasel, that's up to you.
So when the analysts point out that fellow Republican candidates agree with liberal media presenters that schtuff happens only at Trump rallies therefore Trump is responsible and one presenter asks Trump point blank if he should admit responsibility, did the presenter seriously expect Trump to do exactly that? COME FRIGGIN ON ALREADY--GEEEEEEEEZZZ!!!
The question doesn't make Trump look bad--it makes the questioner look like a blithering idiot.
And there's this: both major parties engage in "dirty tricks" campaigns against each other and against their internal insurgents. BOTH of them do this, and correctly predict what the press is going to do when schtuff happens.
Don't get me wrong--I think The Donald does in fact bring out the thusfar stifled violent racist elements that, when left to their own devices, would prefer to go back to the "good ole days" of lynching. But I also think both parties aren't innocent in setting the stage for the purpose of painting that picture to force a conclusion among voters. It's what they've done since time immemorial and it's what they spend money to do. Just ask Ralph Nader.
=================================
Quick Addendum: Just as I hit the Publish button, some gal speaking at the Tucson book festival, just before Ari Beriman took to the mic, said that more people are registering as Independent voters because more people don't like either party. Well, there ya go. I'll buy that...but...they're 'way too late to head off this current train-wreck-in-progress. Chalk this up to shoulda-woulda-coulda-if-only.
==================================
Another Quick Addendum: Why do I rip into "liberal media" when, elsewhere on this blog, I've clearly stated that I'm a liberal registered Republican? I've also stated that I'm an Eisenhower Republican and do take exception to Eisenhower's deportation thing, though, as I recognize that it's American businesses that have relied on people who came here illegally and mention in the same breath that the immigration system is broken and it's a broken system causing all the heartache...and do NOT think the Trump Wall is any kind of good idea.
It's like this, folks--Democrats consider me the enemy, and Republican conservatives share that view; what I've always been is someone who sees the pros and cons of both sides and I refuse to play party loyalty games, which is what all that partisan policy crap really boils down to. This homey never played that. Ever.
Seriously, Republicans--didn't your so-called "conservative movement" involve voting on principles? Where do you hide your principles when you take a loyalty oath to support the Republican candidate who wins the nomination no matter who it is, hm? That's not voting on your principles when the nominee goes against those same principles, is it.
Tuesday, March 08, 2016
Trump disses Fox, and now he disses Murdoch's Wall Street Journal
I'm giving a listen to Trump's victory speech and he's just ripping everybody in what we used to know as "the conservative movement" and getting away with it. He's definitely not Limbaugh's water boy, and Limbaugh's the Republican water boy. This is like watching a slow train wreck in progress. Wall Street Journal poll is a phony, he says, and gets applause.
WOW
He says he's growing the party and attracting Democrat/Independents and it was the Tea Party mission to purge RINOs. Looks like the Tea Party AND the GOP establishment are on the outs at this point.
======================================
How about that Dem race, huh? Conventional wisdom put Bernie in Florida early with Hillary anticipating a victory party in Michigan. With Trump bragging about how attractive he is to Dem liberals, thus growing the party, it's 11 pm Central time and Hillary hasn't brought out the balloons yet. Adding insult to injury, Ted breathes down The Donald's neck by adopting one of Bernie's campaign planks coming out against corporate welfare. Jury's in, folks: the left turned hard left and the right has turned hard left too.
======================================
How about that Dem race, huh? Conventional wisdom put Bernie in Florida early with Hillary anticipating a victory party in Michigan. With Trump bragging about how attractive he is to Dem liberals, thus growing the party, it's 11 pm Central time and Hillary hasn't brought out the balloons yet. Adding insult to injury, Ted breathes down The Donald's neck by adopting one of Bernie's campaign planks coming out against corporate welfare. Jury's in, folks: the left turned hard left and the right has turned hard left too.
Tuesday, March 01, 2016
Oklahoma GOP head-over-heels for anti-business Ted Cruz.
Thursday UPDATE, GOP Debate on Fox Edition: Ted Cruz wants a moratorium on foreign workers on H1B work visas...which is anti-business. Am I right or am I right? Okies can be such yuuuuuuge suckas for a pretty face...then again, though Mary Fallin declared that no Oklahoman would ever vote for a socialist, well, just look at the vote per county, then. Mary, you lose.
Oh ha--good question just in: who did I vote for? I voted for the only grownup in the pack: Kasich.
========================================================
With all the tax breaks Oklahoma has given business in the name of being pro-business, the businessman that is Donald Trump didn't win; instead, the guy who has a problem with "corporate welfare" got the nod, and that's after anti-pork Tom Coburn endorsed Marco Rubio with Governor Fallin abstaining from any endorsement...but not before she made the statement to MSNBC that Oklahoma would never vote for a socialist...and then Oklahoma was won by Bernie Sanders. How the hell did THAT happen?
Seriously--when it comes to corporations, Cruz sounds exactly like Sanders.
Inhofe has nothing but good things to say about Sanders -- Bloomberg
Oklahoma likes to paint its surface with conservative paint, but underneath that thin skin, it's leftist as hell. If you're an Okie who is against illegal immigration, then you're against agricultural business, and Oklahoma IS agricultural business...so...you're anti-Oklahoma.
Monday mini-UPDATE, Post-Flint-Debate Edition: I typically make a point to catch the debates of both parties, even when it means catching the repeat broadcast--and so catching the repeat of the Dem debate in Flint, one thing in particular riveted my attention: when the moderator pointed out to Sanders that his anti-corporate-welfare position was the same as Ted Cruz'. My blog regulars already know that I pointed this out right here on this blog, right here in this particular blog entry, except I didn't try to paint that position as conservative....because it is NOT. It's a socialist position, to be expected of Sanders--it just looks weird when somebody claiming to be a conservative adopts the leftist position, and what's more peculiar still is how leftist the Tea Party has become while still claiming to be ultraconservative.
But the Tea Party as we now know it HAS been commandeered by somebody featured in yesterday's 60 Minutes show: Koch, and he's on record as saying that he's ultra liberal. So there you have it, friends & neighbors--I CALLED IT FIRST.
Oh ha--good question just in: who did I vote for? I voted for the only grownup in the pack: Kasich.
========================================================
With all the tax breaks Oklahoma has given business in the name of being pro-business, the businessman that is Donald Trump didn't win; instead, the guy who has a problem with "corporate welfare" got the nod, and that's after anti-pork Tom Coburn endorsed Marco Rubio with Governor Fallin abstaining from any endorsement...but not before she made the statement to MSNBC that Oklahoma would never vote for a socialist...and then Oklahoma was won by Bernie Sanders. How the hell did THAT happen?
Seriously--when it comes to corporations, Cruz sounds exactly like Sanders.
Inhofe has nothing but good things to say about Sanders -- Bloomberg
Oklahoma likes to paint its surface with conservative paint, but underneath that thin skin, it's leftist as hell. If you're an Okie who is against illegal immigration, then you're against agricultural business, and Oklahoma IS agricultural business...so...you're anti-Oklahoma.
Monday mini-UPDATE, Post-Flint-Debate Edition: I typically make a point to catch the debates of both parties, even when it means catching the repeat broadcast--and so catching the repeat of the Dem debate in Flint, one thing in particular riveted my attention: when the moderator pointed out to Sanders that his anti-corporate-welfare position was the same as Ted Cruz'. My blog regulars already know that I pointed this out right here on this blog, right here in this particular blog entry, except I didn't try to paint that position as conservative....because it is NOT. It's a socialist position, to be expected of Sanders--it just looks weird when somebody claiming to be a conservative adopts the leftist position, and what's more peculiar still is how leftist the Tea Party has become while still claiming to be ultraconservative.
But the Tea Party as we now know it HAS been commandeered by somebody featured in yesterday's 60 Minutes show: Koch, and he's on record as saying that he's ultra liberal. So there you have it, friends & neighbors--I CALLED IT FIRST.
Friday, February 26, 2016
Old audience issue comes back to haunt yet again; Viacom again.
#nerdland
My readers who recognize right away the connection between #nerdland and MHP already know what I'm commencing to write about, and they might as well know right now I'm not happy about that one bit--she was the main reason I'd tune in to MSNBC on Saturdays. I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again: JOB ONE of the people on camera is to draw an audience, and the only reason MSNBC did a 180 with MHP in South Carolina was because they got several earfuls from HER audience, and she had a loyal one.
Screenshot source (comment section)
For my readers who still don't know that I'm talking about Melissa Harris Perry (MHP), well, now you know--the queen of #nerdland. When MSNBC mistreated her, they dissed their audience and now they're going to have to do without hers. Rewind to what I said about Viacom's stock dropping as they lost the audiences of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert...and Colbert's audience numbers for CBS' Late Show bear this out. He took the Colbert Nation with him. I just hope CBS is more realistic about audience expectations for Colbert than it was with Robin Williams--CBS was provably out of line there.
(Related blog entry)
Speaking of Viacom...
And now we have MSNBC stepping in it, realizing too late that the people in front of the camera aren't there for their own benefit--they're there for the audience, and it's the audience that is boss of you, MSNBC.
It's the audience that keeps your lights on, furnishes your paychecks, sets the rates your advertisers think are worth paying for, and pays your stock holders. #DUH
======================================
Sunday mini-UPDATE, MSNBC Newsvine Edition: As you might expect MSNBC 'Viners are discussing this with vigor. Here's a link to one of the discussions: On MSNBC Newsvine: MHP Walks Away from MSNBC Show
Also via MSNBC Newsvine
My readers who recognize right away the connection between #nerdland and MHP already know what I'm commencing to write about, and they might as well know right now I'm not happy about that one bit--she was the main reason I'd tune in to MSNBC on Saturdays. I've said it before on this blog and I'll say it again: JOB ONE of the people on camera is to draw an audience, and the only reason MSNBC did a 180 with MHP in South Carolina was because they got several earfuls from HER audience, and she had a loyal one.
Screenshot source (comment section)
For my readers who still don't know that I'm talking about Melissa Harris Perry (MHP), well, now you know--the queen of #nerdland. When MSNBC mistreated her, they dissed their audience and now they're going to have to do without hers. Rewind to what I said about Viacom's stock dropping as they lost the audiences of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert...and Colbert's audience numbers for CBS' Late Show bear this out. He took the Colbert Nation with him. I just hope CBS is more realistic about audience expectations for Colbert than it was with Robin Williams--CBS was provably out of line there.
(Related blog entry)
Speaking of Viacom...
And now we have MSNBC stepping in it, realizing too late that the people in front of the camera aren't there for their own benefit--they're there for the audience, and it's the audience that is boss of you, MSNBC.
It's the audience that keeps your lights on, furnishes your paychecks, sets the rates your advertisers think are worth paying for, and pays your stock holders. #DUH
======================================
Sunday mini-UPDATE, MSNBC Newsvine Edition: As you might expect MSNBC 'Viners are discussing this with vigor. Here's a link to one of the discussions: On MSNBC Newsvine: MHP Walks Away from MSNBC Show
Also via MSNBC Newsvine
Thursday, February 25, 2016
Run-Up to Oklahoma on Super Tuesday--Sanders the Rock Star? Really?
As Governor Mary Fallin has pointed out to the press recently, Oklahoma is a very conservative state that won't cotton to a socialist...and she was speaking to MSNBC, of all things, which is an eyebrow raiser in its own right. And she said this as Bernie Sanders appeared in Tulsa (a known blue pocket in deep red Oklahoma), as he drove an enormous turn-out. As liberal as Tulsa looks, it's nonetheless an essential part of Oklahoma's economic scenario, given its location near interstate traffic AND its proximity to a port with access to Mississippi River barge traffic--both of which are advantageous in the flow of commerce on a large, historic scale.
Here's the bigger kicker, though--Oklahoma appears to be polling in favor of Trump in Oklahoma on the GOP side, and he's not only a celebrity creature of NBC but has good things to say about Planned Parenthood, getting away with pandering to the anti-abortion crowd in the same breath. You'd think that evangelical support would go towards the Huckabee candidacy, never pandering to anti-abortionists while being completely against Planned Parenthood regardless of anything else it does--but it hasn't.
Then again, the governor doesn't come out dead set against gays like a lot of Oklahomans do, and Oklahoma cast approval of Wesley Clark for POTUS when nobody else in the country did.
Oklahoma defies the typical labels carried by both major parties, despite efforts of state party leaders to demand otherwise. Both of them. Thus this recent decision by Democrats to include Independents in their primaries was a wise strategic move regarding Oklahoma, but it also signals a break in the inter-Party agreements to maintain lopsided ballot access to the exclusion of all other parties and to the exclusion of Independents. The rise of the Tea Party and the GOP pandering to the same simply exhibited how weak it actually was, given the stated position of the Tea Party that the GOP wasn't conservative enough and that Dubya was to be despised...evidence of which was Jeb's failure to rise in the current GOP.
And yet Oklahoma saw fit to name a state highway after Dubya. Liberal move, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is clearly shifting liberal. No bigger posterboy for that is Enid City government. Case closed.
Feb. 26 Friday UPDATE, Endorsement Polka Edition: As I type this, I'm listening to Ted Cruz's wax loquacious about Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump--and I'm amazed at just how leftist Ted Cruz has turned, lambasting "corporate welfare", completely against job creators hiring illegal immigrants while in the same breath say he's not only in favor of job creation but championing what unions have been championing: workplace safety and higher wages, though I've recalled him saying things along the lines of being against a minimum wage somewhere in the past. Those things are what Democrats favor and say they're fighting for, all the way down to the concept behind why Ralph Nader saw to it that there's an OSHA department in federal government. Adding wow on top of wow is Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of this Republican leftist. Who'd-a thunk it.
The Koch bros. on the other hand are getting behind Rubio, bottled-water-guzzling warts and all. Truth of the matter is that Rubio is as close to mainstream as the Republican establishment can get, as if it didn't get the message the Tea Party sent 'em the first time: Republican voters don't like the Republican Party establishment, and there's been no greater blazing sign in that regard by the failure of all previous established Republican leaders getting brutally kicked to the curb, and even by evangelicals who think Trump's a better deal than Huckabee.
The big question du jour is "who can stop Trump?" Well, the people who have been voting for him prefers that this question not get an answer, not even from leftist Ted Cruz. Yeah--I'm popping big buckets of popcorn for this year's primaries.
Bernie vs Hillary? Who are they?
Here's the bigger kicker, though--Oklahoma appears to be polling in favor of Trump in Oklahoma on the GOP side, and he's not only a celebrity creature of NBC but has good things to say about Planned Parenthood, getting away with pandering to the anti-abortion crowd in the same breath. You'd think that evangelical support would go towards the Huckabee candidacy, never pandering to anti-abortionists while being completely against Planned Parenthood regardless of anything else it does--but it hasn't.
Then again, the governor doesn't come out dead set against gays like a lot of Oklahomans do, and Oklahoma cast approval of Wesley Clark for POTUS when nobody else in the country did.
Oklahoma defies the typical labels carried by both major parties, despite efforts of state party leaders to demand otherwise. Both of them. Thus this recent decision by Democrats to include Independents in their primaries was a wise strategic move regarding Oklahoma, but it also signals a break in the inter-Party agreements to maintain lopsided ballot access to the exclusion of all other parties and to the exclusion of Independents. The rise of the Tea Party and the GOP pandering to the same simply exhibited how weak it actually was, given the stated position of the Tea Party that the GOP wasn't conservative enough and that Dubya was to be despised...evidence of which was Jeb's failure to rise in the current GOP.
And yet Oklahoma saw fit to name a state highway after Dubya. Liberal move, Oklahoma.
Oklahoma is clearly shifting liberal. No bigger posterboy for that is Enid City government. Case closed.
Feb. 26 Friday UPDATE, Endorsement Polka Edition: As I type this, I'm listening to Ted Cruz's wax loquacious about Chris Christie's endorsement of Donald Trump--and I'm amazed at just how leftist Ted Cruz has turned, lambasting "corporate welfare", completely against job creators hiring illegal immigrants while in the same breath say he's not only in favor of job creation but championing what unions have been championing: workplace safety and higher wages, though I've recalled him saying things along the lines of being against a minimum wage somewhere in the past. Those things are what Democrats favor and say they're fighting for, all the way down to the concept behind why Ralph Nader saw to it that there's an OSHA department in federal government. Adding wow on top of wow is Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of this Republican leftist. Who'd-a thunk it.
The Koch bros. on the other hand are getting behind Rubio, bottled-water-guzzling warts and all. Truth of the matter is that Rubio is as close to mainstream as the Republican establishment can get, as if it didn't get the message the Tea Party sent 'em the first time: Republican voters don't like the Republican Party establishment, and there's been no greater blazing sign in that regard by the failure of all previous established Republican leaders getting brutally kicked to the curb, and even by evangelicals who think Trump's a better deal than Huckabee.
The big question du jour is "who can stop Trump?" Well, the people who have been voting for him prefers that this question not get an answer, not even from leftist Ted Cruz. Yeah--I'm popping big buckets of popcorn for this year's primaries.
Bernie vs Hillary? Who are they?
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Enid's drive to kid itself about prosperity as revenues continue to dive
Mini-UPDATE up top: Noticed a certain pattern of blog entry hits just now and it's looking like somebody discovered the "easter egg" I left at the public library. Hehehehehehe. Hello there. :D
March 8 mini-UPDATE, John Oliver Edition: Oliver ripped on "special districts" in this vid but managed to cover a number of items that sound Enid-familiar. Worth a watch for everything he covered:
An entirely chance encounter while shopping on Saturday put a huge smile on my face, for it was a City employee, who shall remain nameless, offering me kudos for becoming such a regular at the City Commission meetings, and that I should keep it up. I responded with thanks, pointing out that all I was doing was just "riding herd". This employee wasn't the first to do so, I must point out, though; I encountered the first one while attending the various Christmas musical performances during the Christmas season, a person who additionally quipped that I'm probably famous now after appearing so much on the City's cable access channel (which covers the City Commission meetings). Had to remind this person that nobody's really famous until they start getting dogged by the National Enquirer.
Nonetheless, in some respects all that herd-riding has paid off in terms of street improvements now being realized in front of the Emerson school, and although it's been months later since I brought up Enid Transit as a tourism revenue source, mentioning that there had darn well better be a city that tourist riders WANT to look at, improvements (albeit limited), have been realized since I brought that up.
And so it has been with my bringing up the matter of the poor retail revenue from the downtown area year after year after year, a situation that Main Street Enid hasn't improved upon year after year after year after...you get the idea...because the City Manager's office initiated (among related things) addressing some principle about parking space being conducive to customer spending downtown. That's where they went catty-wonkers from reality by a study that didn't cover the entire actual downtown commerce area, and took pains to avoid looking at the downtown area where the City owned the most real estate, like in the southeast sector of downtown where the Convention Center looms to overshadow the baseball park, and where Cafe Garcia operates by the City's benevolent Big Brother graces.
The Assistant City Manager made this skewed presentation to a Study Session some time ago, included a map that was engineered to obscure the fact that the study was inadequate...a map I took color-coded liberty with but STILL doesn't show the whole story as yet--but I'm still working on that, and a video to post on YouTube utilizing drive-arounds to compare to the map and the presentation.
So yeah--I know a lot of you have about given up on checking back here for a new post without luck (until now), but this is the reason I haven't made a new entry yet. The project isn't finished yet, and I've got quite a ways to go on it before I can consider it finished. Here's a bit of a preview of the City SNAFU in question (keep in mind that the original was NOT color coded, nor was it ever analyzed by TYPE, as I did with the City map, below:
While I was working on my presentation and analysis, Saturday rendered another development, one that we of Enid have seen, at this point, too many times already:
So you see, in raising the downtown revenue shortcomings even with Main Street Enid blowing wads of cash to throw lavish parties downtown, I've got a serious somebody (somebodies in times past) to back me up on that--SO--by all means, watch this space for further developments on this.
You see, whether I win or lose an election doesn't make as much difference to me as actually making a difference, period--and it's clear that I have made a difference to some people. What I won't do is blow a lot of time where I make no difference to anybody.
Don't get me wrong, though--I don't let contrary people stop me from trying to make a difference. I go in where a difference is needed and, as in the case of the City Commission, I can ride herd on a herd that has other ideas. What I'm talking about is something quite aside from that, though. There comes a point where something is akin to beating one's head against an immovable wall, so the strategy to move the wall doesn't work and a different approach is called for. In all the decades I've roamed this planet, I've been called a lot of things, and a lot of 'em weren't complimentary...but..."masochist" wasn't one of 'em.
Sunday mini-UPDATE: While doing some more work on the graphics portion of the aforementioned video, it occurred to me that I made mention of the risks of hotel over-building both to the Commission (I called it the building of things to accommodate the people who think Enid's a lovely place to visit but they wouldn't want to live here) last year, and via City system email to the City Manager in particular, going into further detail in writing about how that mirrored Albuquerque's dilemma.
Rewind to the first Punched Out Judy I produced, where there was a study session segment devoted to how "man camps" worked in terms of what sorts of accommodations for oil field workers might be arrived at and whereupon I made comment about how the dickens could affairs of Bismarck ND had anything to do with the City of Enid? Well, this downtown hotel quandary is part and parcel of overbuilding hotel accommodations for people who love to visit Enid but wouldn't want to live here. But where does Albuquerque fit in?
As poster boy for what happens when hotel accommodations are overbuilt: Albuquerque's problem is the hotel/motel sector scrambling to keep rooms full and resorting to accommodate traffickers and pimps because that's where the demand for hotel/motel rooms is after the influx of respectable people drop off, and the result of that is climbing law enforcement costs--THAT's what. And that's part and parcel of the message being sent by yet another hotel developer whose bread & butter comes from people who love to visit Enid for the future trollops, but still wouldn't want to live here.
It's an environment which people who do live here want to raise their kids around, as evidenced by the wads of cash they throw at building school buildings while hiring illiterate idiot administrators expected to be the judge of literate teachers they hire when they're not hiring "communications specialists", fine arts "experts" and twirling coaches. There aren't any jobs in Enid in the areas that our schools train the kids in....UNLESS....they already know ahead of time that overbuilding hotel/motel spaces will make Enid the porn film producing capital of the world. For that, Enid kids will be already highly qualified.
March 8 mini-UPDATE, John Oliver Edition: Oliver ripped on "special districts" in this vid but managed to cover a number of items that sound Enid-familiar. Worth a watch for everything he covered:
An entirely chance encounter while shopping on Saturday put a huge smile on my face, for it was a City employee, who shall remain nameless, offering me kudos for becoming such a regular at the City Commission meetings, and that I should keep it up. I responded with thanks, pointing out that all I was doing was just "riding herd". This employee wasn't the first to do so, I must point out, though; I encountered the first one while attending the various Christmas musical performances during the Christmas season, a person who additionally quipped that I'm probably famous now after appearing so much on the City's cable access channel (which covers the City Commission meetings). Had to remind this person that nobody's really famous until they start getting dogged by the National Enquirer.
Nonetheless, in some respects all that herd-riding has paid off in terms of street improvements now being realized in front of the Emerson school, and although it's been months later since I brought up Enid Transit as a tourism revenue source, mentioning that there had darn well better be a city that tourist riders WANT to look at, improvements (albeit limited), have been realized since I brought that up.
And so it has been with my bringing up the matter of the poor retail revenue from the downtown area year after year after year, a situation that Main Street Enid hasn't improved upon year after year after year after...you get the idea...because the City Manager's office initiated (among related things) addressing some principle about parking space being conducive to customer spending downtown. That's where they went catty-wonkers from reality by a study that didn't cover the entire actual downtown commerce area, and took pains to avoid looking at the downtown area where the City owned the most real estate, like in the southeast sector of downtown where the Convention Center looms to overshadow the baseball park, and where Cafe Garcia operates by the City's benevolent Big Brother graces.
The Assistant City Manager made this skewed presentation to a Study Session some time ago, included a map that was engineered to obscure the fact that the study was inadequate...a map I took color-coded liberty with but STILL doesn't show the whole story as yet--but I'm still working on that, and a video to post on YouTube utilizing drive-arounds to compare to the map and the presentation.
So yeah--I know a lot of you have about given up on checking back here for a new post without luck (until now), but this is the reason I haven't made a new entry yet. The project isn't finished yet, and I've got quite a ways to go on it before I can consider it finished. Here's a bit of a preview of the City SNAFU in question (keep in mind that the original was NOT color coded, nor was it ever analyzed by TYPE, as I did with the City map, below:
While I was working on my presentation and analysis, Saturday rendered another development, one that we of Enid have seen, at this point, too many times already:
So you see, in raising the downtown revenue shortcomings even with Main Street Enid blowing wads of cash to throw lavish parties downtown, I've got a serious somebody (somebodies in times past) to back me up on that--SO--by all means, watch this space for further developments on this.
You see, whether I win or lose an election doesn't make as much difference to me as actually making a difference, period--and it's clear that I have made a difference to some people. What I won't do is blow a lot of time where I make no difference to anybody.
Don't get me wrong, though--I don't let contrary people stop me from trying to make a difference. I go in where a difference is needed and, as in the case of the City Commission, I can ride herd on a herd that has other ideas. What I'm talking about is something quite aside from that, though. There comes a point where something is akin to beating one's head against an immovable wall, so the strategy to move the wall doesn't work and a different approach is called for. In all the decades I've roamed this planet, I've been called a lot of things, and a lot of 'em weren't complimentary...but..."masochist" wasn't one of 'em.
Sunday mini-UPDATE: While doing some more work on the graphics portion of the aforementioned video, it occurred to me that I made mention of the risks of hotel over-building both to the Commission (I called it the building of things to accommodate the people who think Enid's a lovely place to visit but they wouldn't want to live here) last year, and via City system email to the City Manager in particular, going into further detail in writing about how that mirrored Albuquerque's dilemma.
Rewind to the first Punched Out Judy I produced, where there was a study session segment devoted to how "man camps" worked in terms of what sorts of accommodations for oil field workers might be arrived at and whereupon I made comment about how the dickens could affairs of Bismarck ND had anything to do with the City of Enid? Well, this downtown hotel quandary is part and parcel of overbuilding hotel accommodations for people who love to visit Enid but wouldn't want to live here. But where does Albuquerque fit in?
As poster boy for what happens when hotel accommodations are overbuilt: Albuquerque's problem is the hotel/motel sector scrambling to keep rooms full and resorting to accommodate traffickers and pimps because that's where the demand for hotel/motel rooms is after the influx of respectable people drop off, and the result of that is climbing law enforcement costs--THAT's what. And that's part and parcel of the message being sent by yet another hotel developer whose bread & butter comes from people who love to visit Enid for the future trollops, but still wouldn't want to live here.
It's an environment which people who do live here want to raise their kids around, as evidenced by the wads of cash they throw at building school buildings while hiring illiterate idiot administrators expected to be the judge of literate teachers they hire when they're not hiring "communications specialists", fine arts "experts" and twirling coaches. There aren't any jobs in Enid in the areas that our schools train the kids in....UNLESS....they already know ahead of time that overbuilding hotel/motel spaces will make Enid the porn film producing capital of the world. For that, Enid kids will be already highly qualified.
Monday, February 15, 2016
Enid Eagle minimizes sales revenue losses for Enid
The article starts out comparing Medford to Enid on the front page, and inside, mentions in passing "The only other two area county seats..." so if you see this map as 3 county seats beating Garfield County's seat (Enid), it's not bloody likely for the reader reading this article before the morning coffee has kicked in. Fair enough they point out that this is the 5th straight month of sales decline in Enid, but when you look at Enid as being the state's commerce crossroads that it is, with state, interstate, and Port 33 connections, you have to wonder why the people driving through hang onto their money until they get out of Enid to spend it.
Perhaps it's the case that no trucker in his right mind would even consider spending hard earned cash in a city where there are bridges that eat trucks. Just sayin'. One of those prosperous counties abuts Garfield County's northern border; one abuts its southern border, and the third is next door to the west of the county on Garfield's southern border. TWO counties, next door to each other, to Garfield County's south. Garfield didn't lose as much as the two counties to the west of it, but it also shows that north-south sales traffic is more robust than the east-west traffic...so...yeah, City of Enid--you shouldn't be surprised that truckers come from Texas and as far as trucking entities go, you're already on the Texas shit list.
Next question: what damn good is Main Street Enid in terms of boosting retail sales downtown? Answer: absolutely NO damn good whatsoever. It just makes Enid look like Oklahoma's party capital for blowing wads of capital to the four winds.
Tuesday, February 02, 2016
Enid News & Eagle's failure to inform the public and the liberal liars won the day
Sadie Hawkins Day Education Edition UPDATE, up top:
Since posting the post below about the sorry state of local education on the whole and the Enid Public Schools bond-raiding corruption streak which produces entertainment-skilled kids for entertainment export to the two U.S. coasts, THIS just came down the pike from the Wall Street Journal in terms of kids learning skills that design and make things. In terms of creativity, creating good, safe roads, bridges and buildings just doesn't count because it's not entertaining enough for Enid, so screw science. And now Enid Public Schools join other public school systems across Oklahoma because of the proposed voucher arrangement that allows public money to follow students even when they choose to go to private school, charter school, or home school.
I fully understand the argument against the measure from a teacher's point of view, and sympathize with that, believe me. But administrators have turned public education into such a corrupt bond-raiding racket for crony enrichment that my position is that we've gotta start somewhere to break that cycle of corruption. Sure, private schools have been turned into rackets, too, but we gotta start breaking the cycle somewhere. Public school corruption is a great place to begin.
The bond issue "overwhelmingly" passed, so the misrepresentations made by Floyd and propagated by the newspaper convinced Enid's liberal voters to turn out. Get used to it, conservatives: the passage of this bond means that the voter base of Enid is as liberal as its throw-money-at-every-problem City Commission is. The victories in Iowa and New Hampshire by Donald Trump further illustrates that the conservative argument and position isn't persuasive. Conservatives are just going to have to suck it up both locally and nationally.
No, I will NOT delete this post. Just because the voting public got successfully snookered doesn't change what the facts are. Fact remains that the Enid News & Eagle has a complete disregard for the facts including contradicting its earlier reporting on the state of the school system in its previous articles.
The paper formally endorsed passage of the bond issue in its op ed today, which explains why it previously published false statements made by Darrell Floyd in not one but two consecutive articles about the bond, AND why it failed to inform the public that Google will be seeing to each pupil getting a tablet AND other facilities to foster computer science.
Nearly $100 million was spent on renovations to all our schools as of the 2010 bond issue when keeping the Vance Air Force Base was at stake during the Bush era Base Realignment And Closing program (BRAC). Vance is still here, Vance is already happy with the upgrades and renovations, people, and THEY were the ones concerned about future growth, reported by the same Enid News & Eagle as having been figured into the amount that bond asked for--and got.
I put it to you, Enid--if, after already spending $100 million on renovations already done, with enough "savings" to give a project no voter voted to approve in the form of the Enid High's University Center, what makes you think that Google's unreported contribution to education technology isn't going to result in massive "savings" to be raided for future vanity projects nobody gets to vote on too? What was spent on the University Center was diverted from the projects voted on, and we still have deficient schools, the paper claims (compare today's paper with the already cited paper printed in 2014), then we can't trust these people with getting more money.
First entry re: Enid Public Schools porkbarrel bond
New developments re: EPS porkbarrel bond & redux
Enid News & Eagle's demonstrable interest in bond raiding practice
Enid Public Schools demonstrates incompetence with the technology the City already gave it
Google's education tech contribution to schools
With Oklahoma seriously contemplating a sales tax hike to fund education needs and Gov. Fallin's State of the State address, the EPS bond tax will just be redundant, levying a burden that will render any future City of Enid project bond issues an automatic NO vote regardless of its merits, so this EPS bond issue is very much the City of Enid's business.
Since posting the post below about the sorry state of local education on the whole and the Enid Public Schools bond-raiding corruption streak which produces entertainment-skilled kids for entertainment export to the two U.S. coasts, THIS just came down the pike from the Wall Street Journal in terms of kids learning skills that design and make things. In terms of creativity, creating good, safe roads, bridges and buildings just doesn't count because it's not entertaining enough for Enid, so screw science. And now Enid Public Schools join other public school systems across Oklahoma because of the proposed voucher arrangement that allows public money to follow students even when they choose to go to private school, charter school, or home school.
I fully understand the argument against the measure from a teacher's point of view, and sympathize with that, believe me. But administrators have turned public education into such a corrupt bond-raiding racket for crony enrichment that my position is that we've gotta start somewhere to break that cycle of corruption. Sure, private schools have been turned into rackets, too, but we gotta start breaking the cycle somewhere. Public school corruption is a great place to begin.
 |
| From the Wall Street Journal article |
The bond issue "overwhelmingly" passed, so the misrepresentations made by Floyd and propagated by the newspaper convinced Enid's liberal voters to turn out. Get used to it, conservatives: the passage of this bond means that the voter base of Enid is as liberal as its throw-money-at-every-problem City Commission is. The victories in Iowa and New Hampshire by Donald Trump further illustrates that the conservative argument and position isn't persuasive. Conservatives are just going to have to suck it up both locally and nationally.
No, I will NOT delete this post. Just because the voting public got successfully snookered doesn't change what the facts are. Fact remains that the Enid News & Eagle has a complete disregard for the facts including contradicting its earlier reporting on the state of the school system in its previous articles.
The paper formally endorsed passage of the bond issue in its op ed today, which explains why it previously published false statements made by Darrell Floyd in not one but two consecutive articles about the bond, AND why it failed to inform the public that Google will be seeing to each pupil getting a tablet AND other facilities to foster computer science.
Nearly $100 million was spent on renovations to all our schools as of the 2010 bond issue when keeping the Vance Air Force Base was at stake during the Bush era Base Realignment And Closing program (BRAC). Vance is still here, Vance is already happy with the upgrades and renovations, people, and THEY were the ones concerned about future growth, reported by the same Enid News & Eagle as having been figured into the amount that bond asked for--and got.
I put it to you, Enid--if, after already spending $100 million on renovations already done, with enough "savings" to give a project no voter voted to approve in the form of the Enid High's University Center, what makes you think that Google's unreported contribution to education technology isn't going to result in massive "savings" to be raided for future vanity projects nobody gets to vote on too? What was spent on the University Center was diverted from the projects voted on, and we still have deficient schools, the paper claims (compare today's paper with the already cited paper printed in 2014), then we can't trust these people with getting more money.
First entry re: Enid Public Schools porkbarrel bond
New developments re: EPS porkbarrel bond & redux
Enid News & Eagle's demonstrable interest in bond raiding practice
Enid Public Schools demonstrates incompetence with the technology the City already gave it
Google's education tech contribution to schools
With Oklahoma seriously contemplating a sales tax hike to fund education needs and Gov. Fallin's State of the State address, the EPS bond tax will just be redundant, levying a burden that will render any future City of Enid project bond issues an automatic NO vote regardless of its merits, so this EPS bond issue is very much the City of Enid's business.
Friday, January 29, 2016
What a remarkable GOP debate last night, yeah?
Media darling of NBC didn't show up at the Fox News debate and yet his presence was felt and discussed in his absence. As Trump predicted, the ratings were low in his absence even though the debate incorporated discussion of his proposed policies. But as *I* predicted, there was nothing new about what was discussed; we've all heard it all before, and wouldn't have missed a thing if we ourselves hadn't tuned in. We know the talking points forward & backward, we're familiar with the crusade against Planned Parenthood, now quite thoroughly debunked by high court, and although it's a predictable applause line for the people who will still do anything, including fabricate stuff, to shut it down, in terms of size compared to the voting public, it's still a peanut gallery.
The results are in: Trump is NBC's ticket for trumping Fox.
And whereas Trump has been the consistent GOP leading candidate, imagine what that says about the GOP rank & file.
Now let's examine Fox owner, Rupert Murdoch, who has been on a media buying spree but targeting media with long standing authoritative reputations. He's obviously not happy with the reputation Fox gives him and thinks he can buy credibility by buying the likes of Wall Street Journal and National Geographic. Sorry, Rupe, but credibility of reputation is earned, not bought. The second that you purchase an entity with a high reputation, the reputation takes a nosedive, and your credibility remains in the toilet.
At this point we arrive at the problem with Mehgan Kelly, and there is one, and we saw it last night: she makes the debate all about her, not the candidates. That wasn't what Trump conveyed when he complained, though, and the opening remark with a string of ad hominems concluded by the statement that the Trump segment was now over, stuck. It's true. Nothing gets a point across better than one that's based on truth, although the truth must be stated with illustration to get across. That one was. If Trump was able to convey an actual problem with Mehgan Kelly, he would have conveyed his point, and he didn't.
The GOP's Ethanol Fissure: This is essentially a Friday UPDATE because Ted Cruz makes it his Iowa issue right now. The GOP was massively against the idea of blending ethanol to gasoline to begin with, and an effective tactic in any red state, including Oklahoma, is for a gas station to put NO ETHANOL in huge letters, and/or 100% GASOLINE on its outdoor signage. Ethanol is not only an admission of air quality issues which the GOP has traditionally denied, and tied into the climate change issue, which the GOP currently denies. But to succeed in Iowa, the GOP is required to say good things about federal subsidies and enforcement of blending ethanol in gasoline AND take a stand against that federal "blend wall". Welcome to liberalism, Iowa GOP. And to any member of the GOP that panders to Iowa.
===================
Monday mini-UPDATE, Iowa Caucus Edition: By golly, I heard Trump bring up the ethanol vs conservatives issue today. When the man's right, he's right!
The results are in: Trump is NBC's ticket for trumping Fox.
And whereas Trump has been the consistent GOP leading candidate, imagine what that says about the GOP rank & file.
Now let's examine Fox owner, Rupert Murdoch, who has been on a media buying spree but targeting media with long standing authoritative reputations. He's obviously not happy with the reputation Fox gives him and thinks he can buy credibility by buying the likes of Wall Street Journal and National Geographic. Sorry, Rupe, but credibility of reputation is earned, not bought. The second that you purchase an entity with a high reputation, the reputation takes a nosedive, and your credibility remains in the toilet.
At this point we arrive at the problem with Mehgan Kelly, and there is one, and we saw it last night: she makes the debate all about her, not the candidates. That wasn't what Trump conveyed when he complained, though, and the opening remark with a string of ad hominems concluded by the statement that the Trump segment was now over, stuck. It's true. Nothing gets a point across better than one that's based on truth, although the truth must be stated with illustration to get across. That one was. If Trump was able to convey an actual problem with Mehgan Kelly, he would have conveyed his point, and he didn't.
The GOP's Ethanol Fissure: This is essentially a Friday UPDATE because Ted Cruz makes it his Iowa issue right now. The GOP was massively against the idea of blending ethanol to gasoline to begin with, and an effective tactic in any red state, including Oklahoma, is for a gas station to put NO ETHANOL in huge letters, and/or 100% GASOLINE on its outdoor signage. Ethanol is not only an admission of air quality issues which the GOP has traditionally denied, and tied into the climate change issue, which the GOP currently denies. But to succeed in Iowa, the GOP is required to say good things about federal subsidies and enforcement of blending ethanol in gasoline AND take a stand against that federal "blend wall". Welcome to liberalism, Iowa GOP. And to any member of the GOP that panders to Iowa.
===================
Monday mini-UPDATE, Iowa Caucus Edition: By golly, I heard Trump bring up the ethanol vs conservatives issue today. When the man's right, he's right!
Friday, January 22, 2016
Something major happened today re: Enid Public Schools solicitations for bond votes
...and it deserves a blog post all by itself. And anybody in Enid tuning in to Suddenlink channels 19 or 119 already know what I'm talking about, and I'm sure they've seen this horror long before I did...and...I'm sure that what's been seen can't be unseen. Oh, woe is Mr. Darrell Floyd. Suddenlink got on the case immediately after I started using Twitter to urge other locals to tune in, but the best fix they got was just a slide show with no audio.
I did capture what happened, and I spent the late afternoon turning into a vote no promo. Well, that's the size of the horror, and it's all of Darryll Floyd's own making. Ya just can't make this shit up. Enjoy:
January 26 UPDATE, school funding edition: Obama pledges $4 billion for computer science in school Can't stand Obama? You'll have to hate Google too, then. Google is a partner.
Yes, computer coding is a science, you silly world-class-find-arts-center cheerleader twirling queens. You're going to need math for coding, and it appears you didn't know that. I say again: city engineers (civil engineers) don't come from arts programs. Fire fighters don't come from arts programs either, so if you don't grow your own civil engineers and firefighters, you have to go afar to find them. Computer coders don't come from fine arts programs either. Fine arts programs don't train kids to qualify for jobs in Enid--they get trained for export to California or New York. That's reality--deal with it or reality will deal with you.
==========================
Saturday mini-UPDATE, Enid News & Eagle's article about the City Commission edition:
The article discusses a financial review, mentions in passing the sales tax revenue shortfalls over the past year, saying that automatic budget cuts kick in, and this comes in as Enid has to vote for higher taxes because of that pork-barrel school bond vote to give Floyd some more shiny new electronic toys to play with as if the new electronic toys the City of Enid gave him with his cable channels weren't good enough...
That jogged my memory about something I'd heard or read about how Enid and the state were hotbeds of non-profit organizations. If you don't see where I'm going with this, I'll spell it out for you--under the guise of being anti-tax conservativism, is it the case that conservatives turn against the principles of making a profit? The whole idea that conservative principles were based on was to not be ashamed of making a profit. But profits get taxed, and so we have the posterboy for anti-profit occupation of commercial real estate property in downtown Enid in the form of CDSA, taking up the entire square footage of what used to be a for-profit furniture store, Burchardt's. That's one helluva lot of multiple storey square footage of retail space not generating sales tax to replace the sales tax revenue of the company that used to be there.
And there's not one damn dollar spent on Main Street Enid that has made an impact on remedying that situation while it continues to burn good money best spent elsewhere.
==================================================
Sunday mini-UPDATE: Got word that a southern Illinois favorite, Minnesota Fats, passed away in Nashville...and while I was enjoying all the stories told about his legendary pool hustling days on this occasion, I also ran across something more pertinent to Enid's revenue situation in that it's failed to capitalize on the fact that it's a commercial road and rail crossroads. Over in southern Illinois, in the town of West Frankfort, a mayor decided to buy a mall for development just because it's just off Interstate 57. Anybody who knows the route as a significant north-south commercial transport corridor can easily see why. Enid's a little dense in that regard, because while it meddles in mucking around aimlessly with buying up private property for downtown development and some other residential developments, it's letting former retail tax generator Oakwood Mall backslide.
Oklahoma is peculiar in stacking all its revenue chips on retail sales tax, but the concept behind this scheme was based on good solid thinking when actual conservatives were running the place: you're in business to make money and when you make money, you can chip in on showing the world how prosperous the state is. But that was also before the roster of Oklahoma non-profit organizations hit the 8,000 mark. With the anti-tax anti-government sentiment out there among the neo-cons and now with the Tea Party, now everybody's against making a profit these days, which makes the state's pro-business position look rather silly, especially in the accounting department.
Here's the article in the Southern Illinoisan newspaper.
Now here's an interesting graphic that might very well be applied to Enid's concept of TIF development:
Yup--TIFs don't always end well, and he's right about giving out special treatment that your local small biz owners don't get to benefit from. And all the TIFs in the world don't make up for the fact that the schools in your city don't produce graduates that qualify for the jobs offered by the big biz you're trying to attract. City civil engineers just don't come from fine arts departments, world class or otherwise, and neither does a skilled workforce. You can't hire local firemen from that lot either because that requires at least a basic grasp of physics--and now that they're first responders in hazmat spills, they'll need basics in chemistry as well.
Arts and music are necessary for a well-rounded education, but you don't get a well-rounded education on arts alone. You train kids for failure when you do that.
This just in, via a Facebook meme exchange:
Now for something completely different UPDATE: I've had stuff "go viral" before, but this one's a first on Facebook:
I did capture what happened, and I spent the late afternoon turning into a vote no promo. Well, that's the size of the horror, and it's all of Darryll Floyd's own making. Ya just can't make this shit up. Enjoy:
January 26 UPDATE, school funding edition: Obama pledges $4 billion for computer science in school Can't stand Obama? You'll have to hate Google too, then. Google is a partner.
Yes, computer coding is a science, you silly world-class-find-arts-center cheerleader twirling queens. You're going to need math for coding, and it appears you didn't know that. I say again: city engineers (civil engineers) don't come from arts programs. Fire fighters don't come from arts programs either, so if you don't grow your own civil engineers and firefighters, you have to go afar to find them. Computer coders don't come from fine arts programs either. Fine arts programs don't train kids to qualify for jobs in Enid--they get trained for export to California or New York. That's reality--deal with it or reality will deal with you.
==========================
Saturday mini-UPDATE, Enid News & Eagle's article about the City Commission edition:
The article discusses a financial review, mentions in passing the sales tax revenue shortfalls over the past year, saying that automatic budget cuts kick in, and this comes in as Enid has to vote for higher taxes because of that pork-barrel school bond vote to give Floyd some more shiny new electronic toys to play with as if the new electronic toys the City of Enid gave him with his cable channels weren't good enough...
That jogged my memory about something I'd heard or read about how Enid and the state were hotbeds of non-profit organizations. If you don't see where I'm going with this, I'll spell it out for you--under the guise of being anti-tax conservativism, is it the case that conservatives turn against the principles of making a profit? The whole idea that conservative principles were based on was to not be ashamed of making a profit. But profits get taxed, and so we have the posterboy for anti-profit occupation of commercial real estate property in downtown Enid in the form of CDSA, taking up the entire square footage of what used to be a for-profit furniture store, Burchardt's. That's one helluva lot of multiple storey square footage of retail space not generating sales tax to replace the sales tax revenue of the company that used to be there.
And there's not one damn dollar spent on Main Street Enid that has made an impact on remedying that situation while it continues to burn good money best spent elsewhere.
==================================================
Sunday mini-UPDATE: Got word that a southern Illinois favorite, Minnesota Fats, passed away in Nashville...and while I was enjoying all the stories told about his legendary pool hustling days on this occasion, I also ran across something more pertinent to Enid's revenue situation in that it's failed to capitalize on the fact that it's a commercial road and rail crossroads. Over in southern Illinois, in the town of West Frankfort, a mayor decided to buy a mall for development just because it's just off Interstate 57. Anybody who knows the route as a significant north-south commercial transport corridor can easily see why. Enid's a little dense in that regard, because while it meddles in mucking around aimlessly with buying up private property for downtown development and some other residential developments, it's letting former retail tax generator Oakwood Mall backslide.
Oklahoma is peculiar in stacking all its revenue chips on retail sales tax, but the concept behind this scheme was based on good solid thinking when actual conservatives were running the place: you're in business to make money and when you make money, you can chip in on showing the world how prosperous the state is. But that was also before the roster of Oklahoma non-profit organizations hit the 8,000 mark. With the anti-tax anti-government sentiment out there among the neo-cons and now with the Tea Party, now everybody's against making a profit these days, which makes the state's pro-business position look rather silly, especially in the accounting department.
Here's the article in the Southern Illinoisan newspaper.
Now here's an interesting graphic that might very well be applied to Enid's concept of TIF development:
Arts and music are necessary for a well-rounded education, but you don't get a well-rounded education on arts alone. You train kids for failure when you do that.
This just in, via a Facebook meme exchange:
Now for something completely different UPDATE: I've had stuff "go viral" before, but this one's a first on Facebook:
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