Ken Nelson

A Canadian woman strangles her baby. Murder – right?

Nope.

She got a suspended sentence for killing her child.

And 16 days in jail for littering (putting the corpse in a neighbors yard).

Although this hideous crime and wrong punishment happened in Canada you can envision similar happening here, can’t you?  In Vermont, or California, maybe New York. Places closer to Canada on the “out of their minds” track.

The sport I participate in has us do the Pledge of Allegiance before events. I say the words, but as I do I sometimes wonder “do I really?”.

Something is REALLY wrong. We, Western Culture that is, are WAY off the tracks.

Sometimes I wonder if we aren’t really worth saving. Don’t you?

The government claims it is a success. Megan McArdle says “nope”.

To put that in perspective, GM had about 75,000 hourly workers before the bankruptcy.  We could have given each of them a cool $250,000 and still come out well ahead compared to the ultimate cost of the bailout including the tax breaks–and over $100,000 a piece if we just wanted to break even against our losses on the common stock.

Of course doing that would have been dumb too. But it does show the point.  Better would have been to let them take their lumps and end up being owned by their investors who would then have incentive to bring the company back to profitability and a higher competitive position.

But that wouldn’t help Democrats would it?

Stories like this one: (via Instapundit)

In Michigan, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed a complaint alleging that Michigan State Police officers used forensic cellphone analyzers to snoop in drivers’ cellphones during routine traffic stops.

make me wonder if police have become a bigger threat than the crimes they enforce?

Add their pension costs and political clout to the equation and it seems pretty risky to normal folk to have this many police, with this many laws to choose from when harrassing us.

On my recent drive to NC my van was stopped by an Arkansas State Trooper. He had no reason to stop us, he didn’t claim we were speeding. He just wanted to see if “we were ok”.  He then proceeded to separate the adults, question us, and without permission inspect the interior of our van, asking about guns and other items we might be carrying.

I’ll assume you are a law abiding citizen. Do police help you? Or prey on you?  When you were a victim of crime, did they solve it, prevent it, or simply take a report on it?   When you see a police car in the mirror, do you feel heartened or alarmed that they will use you as the city, county or states personal checkbook?

As I drove home from the dump two days back a local police car got in behind me. I could see he was looking for reasons to pull me over. Me, with a new, and nice truck, a nicely walled in trailer, a model of a hard working honest citizen….. but to him I was just a target, something to hunt. He moved on, nothing to get here, but I’m sure he ruined a few days before he was done with his shift.

My brother will say that is a St. George thing. But I hit it in Arkansas.  And the link above is from Michigan.  Perhaps his department doesn’t do this, but it seems they are way out of the norm. And in actuality they do, as we’ve both seen his departments traffic units running amok on honest citizens.

We need less laws, less police, less spending on police, and a less militarized police.

But most of all our police need to be aimed at criminals, not at us.

Here are the costs for Utah college tuition for 2011-12 school year:

They will raise tuition 7% to 11.8%.

But I wonder… are they providing 7% better schools?

Certainly not.

I’d like to see our College Regents cut tuition not raise it.  And I’d like to see them quit belly aching about state cuts and INSTEAD think about how to run schools that are 7% BETTER and 7% CHEAPER.

You know… like I run my business.  You know… how I, and tens of thousands of other Utah enterprises, respond to tough times.

=   

South Carolina views drivers as portable wallets they can pick as they choose.

I don’t know why people put up with this crap.  I guess because they isolate you and have guns. 

Our police department, in St. George, UT, spends an inordinate amount of effort on raising money through traffic enforcement.

And an inordinately small amount of time actually preventing crime.

They are led by an uncreative chief who never met a politically correct police technique he didn’t want to try.   They prey on a compliant population that is naïve enough to believe it when the cops tell them they are ticketing all these people for safety reasons.

Yet, as I’ve shown in the past, although our population changes significantly in the summer versus winter, our police ticket issuance hangs right in there, no matter how many drivers are about:

May 1235
June 1201
July 1168
Aug 1163

No…. I don’t think it is about safety. It’s all about the greenbacks.

Home of the Best Legislature Resort Money Can Buy

Recently, the Utah Legislature passed a Guest Workers Program that is basically an amnesty. Why? Well, in order to qualify for it you have to BE HERE ILLEGALLY.

(1) To be eligible to obtain or maintain a guest worker permit, an undocumented
individual shall:
  (a) (i) be 18 years of age or older; or
      (ii) if younger than 18 years of age, have the permission of a parent or 
            guardian;
(b) live in Utah;

The program permits residence by the workers family, including grandparents and siblings, nephews and nieces.

In return for this gift of amnesty those of us concerned about illegal immigration the police must check the illegal status of those arrested for felony or serious misdemeanors. SOMETHING THEY SHOULD BE DOING ANYWAY!.

Republicans in Utah need a serious revamp, Tea Party style. They need to go down.

And that includes our Governor too… if he signs this monstrosity.

BTW: If you visit the Legislature site you will NOT find voting records. At least, I couldn’t. They may be there, but they are hard or impossible to find.

And keep it coming!

This kind of lawsuit is why people hate the law profession. An all you eat sushi customer, didn’t want to eat the rice too, and has sued:

Two weeks later, Martin filed suit in Los Angeles County Superior Court. It seeks at least $4,000 in damages for the "humiliation, embarrassment and mental anguish" Martin says he suffered after being discriminated against "on the basis of his disability."

Basically, he wants another person to subsidize his condition. And he wants to demand that subsidy just for walking into a store.

My son and I eat at All You Can Eat Sushi places regularly. We get our monies worth, and the establishments make it clear that you MUST eat your rice.

That he even thinks such a suit is reasonable is a tribute to all the bad law and big government succoring done over the last few decades.  For instance, the unconstitutional Americans with Disabilities Act that forces businesses to spend thousands to accommodate certain disabilities that have political clout.

Sometimes I wonder what it means to be “American” anymore. To a lot of people it sure means something I’m not proud of.

It used to be the Home of the Free & the Brave. Now… it is the Home of the Gimme That.

What list?  The list of things people put up with that I can’t understand why…

NYPD stopped and FRISKED 600,000 people LAST YEAR.

The Gawker highlights that only 7% were actually guilty of something (carrying a weapon or drugs or some other illegal thing).  But it could have been 100% and I’d still be troubled…  when we can’t move around without being subject to search, how free are we?

Remember… once they can frisk you for no reason, they will just make more things illegal until they own your time.

For any reason. What the hell is up with this country?

Red but dumb.

One of the reasons I’m not particularly enthusiastic about our nation’s prospects is what I see here in Utah, which is nominally a “red” “tea party” state.  Yet… they plan to increase education funding, largely due to teachers union power.

Public education in Utah already wastes too much money and provides very little return for the MASSIVE increase in spending over the last decade.  It needs a CUT, not an increase.

Wisconsin, a formerly Blue state, farther along the bankruptcy path is smarter about this than Utah.  Who would have thought that liberal cheese heads fresh back from a Feingold rally would aim right at a public union’s kill zone?

Public sector employees play a large political role in both states.  But I suspect an important difference is that Utah families are larger.  A large number of Utah residents get a great deal educating 4 or 6 kids at other people’s expense. More spending on education costs them nothing (that they can measure) and eases their angst about foisting their ill behaved kids off on other people all day.

As an aside, my kids have been in private school or home school all their education, except for a 2 week experiment my son did at a local middle school that didn’t end well.

Governor Ken would handle education funding differently.  I’d put a much higher burden on parents, and call that a GOOD thing, since they would now care about school quality and efficiency.  

But I’d never get elected because in SPITE of their Tea Party protestations… Utahans love a handout just as much as some Easterner in New York.

So, Utah, home of a vigorous Tea Party, banisher of Bennett, as socially conservative as you can get, yet under the thrall of public sector unions, is another reason why I’m pretty discouraged about our chances as a nation.

If we can’t do it right here, where can it work?

If I had to protest and snow was on the ground…

Or if I had to take a day off work to watch my kids when they should have been at school….

Or if a teacher with a better paycheck, security, insurance, pension and schedule than me had the temerity to strike.

In modern life, those with the most knowledge usually win.  So, for instance, if you buy insurance, you should only buy it for what you need but can’t afford to replace, OR if you know something the insurance company doesn’t.

In car finance the same applies.  For instance, lease deals can seem attractive. $199 a month to drive some fancy car you never thought you could afford.  The problem lies in the fine print:

Here’s one such complicated arrangement. Mini-USA is offering a $199/month deal on its 2011 Cooper 2-door hatchback. Sounds good.  But buyers must show up with $2,727 as a down payment. And they must drive the small car small distances — no more than 833 miles per month. The punishment for excessive mileage? A not mini 20 cents per mile. Someone who drives the normal 36,000 during that three-year Cooper lease ends up with a $1,200 bill at the end. Drive 15,000 miles per year, and the bill is a whopping $3,000.

So, if you KNOW for sure that you will be using the car for occasional trips. And you will be well under the mileage. And you understand and won’t test the other conditions, maybe the lease is right for you.

Lacking that… pay cash, or finance a used car, on the best terms you can.  You need wheels, not fun. Buy the least you can, and that includes money – which is really what you are buying with a car lease or loan.

Obama… he is so darned consistent.

No matter what he says, does, it is always about getting our money to his constituencies, largely unions and corporations that bought him.

Yesterday… he promises to cut 750 million. MILLION.

And today… he spends 53 BILLION on stupid rail projects.

If you voted for him, shame on you.

If you still support him,  well… I can’t think of any polite words to describe you, so I won’t try.

Clever ad, Motorola,:

But at $800 bucks… why would I choose it?

You have two lines of attack Motorola…

  Price – fail.
  Open – nice not enough to justify the price

My advice… wait for the next one. Early adopting at $800 bucks + a data plan is stupid.

An 7 to 10 inch Android tablet with conductive touch screen should be $200 bucks mid year.

Drudge:

What he really means is corporations… what’s yours is mine. I will give it to select American works in return for their votes.

BTW… I don’t recall him touting this “share” program as part of his change or hope…

You in back… give me 30% of your money!

Apple informed publishers today that if they want to sell content that runs on the iPad, they will have to pay 30%, just like in the App Store.

This, of course, means that Kindle will not be viable on the iPad. Which THEN means my iPad will collect dust after it is replaced by an Android pad.

And, sure, the iPad is nice. But the Galaxy Tab is nice too, and so are the zillions of alternatives steaming west from factories all over Asia.

So.. good luck with that Apple.  Continue to be the hated “1984” character you actually made fun of in 1984.   I’d add that Microsoft, even at their worst, only hoped to reach Apple’s level of greed.