New Downtown Des Moines Development

The Register has a story today about a new proposed development on the southwestern side of downtown Des Moines.

Planners hope a $220 million mix of homes and stores will revive an often-forgotten area called Riverpoint West, where more than one good idea has died in the past 20 years.

New plans for the 150-acre site, south of the new Martin Luther King Jr. bypass near Southwest Ninth Street, call for 450,000 square feet of retail space - about a third of the size of Jordan Creek Town Center.

Developers also hope to build more than 700 townhomes and condominiums in the $175,000 to $400,000 range.

Construction could begin late this year.

This has been a bit of an "on again: off again" project for several years. If you Google the phrase "riverpoint west," you'll notice several speaches and references to city council meeting over since 1999. When I was looking to buy a house about four years ago, the realators were telling me, "You know, if you wait about another year, there are going to be some neat townhomes and condos right on the southern edge of downtown."

Hopefully, they'll actually get it done this time.

Gettin' 'Er Done at the Tax Blog

Our buddy Joe has been blogging up a storm over at the Roth CPA Tax Blog.

From diagramming inappropriate tax shelters, to discussing how your siblings aren't really family--as far as the IRS is concerned, to cheating on your basis, Joe's got you covered.

This is NOT a Parody

Comments from an actual transcript of John Kerry’s appearance on NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS, Sunday, 1/30/05:

MR. RUSSERT: Election day, Iraq. Condoleezza Rice, the new secretary of State, has just told the United States and the world, "It has gone better than expected." What is your sense?
SEN. KERRY: …This election is a sort of demarcation point, and what really counts now is the effort to have a legitimate political reconciliation, and it's going to take a massive diplomatic effort and a much more significant outreach to the international community than this administration has been willing to engage in. Absent that, we will not be successful in Iraq.

(What we need in Iraq is - wait for it – better diplomacy to get the UN involved.)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe that Iraq is less a terrorist threat to the United States now than it was two years ago?
SEN. KERRY: No, it's more. And, in fact, I believe the world is less safe today than it was two and a half years ago…
MR. RUSSERT: Is the United States safer with the newly elected Iraqi government than we would have been with Saddam Hussein?
SEN. KERRY: Sure.

(So, Iraq is more of a threat and the world is less safe, except that we’re safer now that Saddam is gone.)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you a photograph from Inauguration Day. Here is George W. Bush giving his second inaugural address. And there watching is John Kerry… What was going through your mind at that moment on that morning?
SEN. KERRY: …and if you add up the popular vote in the battleground states, I won the popular vote in the battleground states by two percentage points. We just didn't distribute it correctly in Ohio.

(Kerry would be president except the votes were badly distributed in Ohio. What does that mean – too many were wasted on Wisconsin?)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: And you have a hat that the CIA agent gave you?
SEN. KERRY: I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, "I'm the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia."

(So, we could have a coast-to-coast manhunt for this guy, OR we could turn Bill Burkett loose.)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: Many people who've been criticizing you have said: Senator, if you would just do one thing and that is sign Form 180, which would allow historians and journalists complete access to all your military records. Thus far, you have gotten the records, released them through your campaign. They say you should not be the filter. Sign Form 180 and let the historians...
SEN. KERRY: I'd be happy to put the records out. We put all the records out that I had been sent by the military. Then at the last moment, they sent some more stuff, which had some things that weren't even relevant to the record. So when we get--I'm going to sit down with them and make sure that they are clear and I am clear as to what is in the record and what isn't in the record and we'll put it out. I have no problem with that.

(Just so you understand I won’t filter anything)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: In 1986, when Scalia was put on the court, he was confirmed 98-to-nothing, and this is what John Kerry said then about Judge Scalia. "I believe Judge Scalia is a man of principle and integrity. I believe that his conservative view of the role of the judiciary will provide a valuable and needed balance on the Court. ... While I may often disagree with Judge Scalia's views, I respect him as a jurist, a legal scholar. I believe that he will make a positive contribution to the Supreme Court, and I support his nomination."
SEN. KERRY: I was wrong.

(…when I said balance on the court is needed)

[…]
MR. RUSSERT: You're saying raise taxes by rolling back the top bracket. You're raising taxes on richer Americans to pay for Social Security.
SEN. KERRY: Well, Tim, you can call it what you want. I mean, if you think rolling back to the level that we had in the 1990s, when an awful lot of our friends made an awful lot of money and people did very well in America--if you think that's raising taxes, then you can go ahead and have that definition. …If the president would say to us, "Look, let's all get together and make sure Social Security is going to be saved the way President Clinton did, for the long term, and we're going to do it without privatizing it but we'll find one of these ways of doing it that's responsible," we will be at the table and we will join him to depoliticize it.

(If you call making people pay more taxes is raising taxes, OK, but I want a permanent solution, like all the other times we’ve saved Social Security.)

And this guy received 59 million votes. Unbelievable.

Jeff's Reasons John Kerry is a Bum: The Last Chapter?

The Power Line guys actually sat through John Kerry's appearane on Meet the [De]Press[ed] this morning. He did nothing to disappoint in carrying out his primar mission--selling pessimism on the Iraqi election. However, Power Line is pointing out Kerry's utter incoherence on his own past, specifically, his alleged Christmas in Cambodia.

From the MSNBC transcript of the the interview we have the following:

SEN. KERRY: We were right on the border, Tim. What I explained to people and I told this any number of times, did I go into Cambodia on a mission? Yes, I did go into Cambodia on a mission. Was it on that night? No, it was not on that night. But we were right on the Cambodian border that night.

Huh? I thought it was seared in his memory that they were five miles inside of Cambodia on Christmas Eve. Perhaps "seared" has a different meaning to John Kerry.

Later he says that while he wasn't in Cambodia on Christmas Eve, he did go there on another occassion. (A memory, which I'm sure is also seared--SEARED, I say--in his memory.)

SEN. KERRY: I still have the hat that he gave me, and I hope the guy would come out of the woodwork and say, "I'm the guy who went up with John Kerry. We delivered weapons to the Khmer Rouge on the coastline of Cambodia."

You did what? You gave weapons to the Khmer Rouge? WTF? John, the Khmer Rouge were a communist insurgency. They were the enemy. You were giving weapons to them? Count me as skeptical.

Even if you allow that this is a slip of the tongue, what does it say of Tim Russert that he doesn't know enough history to catch that?

As Power Line's Hindrocket adds:

HINDROCKET adds: It's interesting that Kerry backs off the obvious lie that he spent Christmas Eve of 1968 in Cambodia, but he still can't bring himself to tell the truth. He doesn't want to admit that he simply fabricated the Christmas Eve story that was "seared into his memory," so he tries to pretend that the story is almost true: "[W]e were right on the Cambodian border that night. We were ambushed there, as a matter of fact." But, as Kerry himself recorded contemporaneously in his journal, he spent that Christmas Eve at Sa Dec, fully fifty miles from the Cambodian border. And his boat wasn't ambushed that night; he wrote that he had "visions of sugar plums" dancing in his head.

Ouch!...That's Going to Leave a Mark

Iowa Hawk has popped the pompous gasbag that is Senator Edward Kennedy. In what can be described as a brutal beatdown, Iowa Hawk cuts Kennedy to ribbons in a finely crafted piece that manages to remind us of both Teddy's shameful behavior at Chappaquidick and his chicken-little views towards Iraq in one fell swoop.

I don't know where he comes up with this stuff, but I sure hope he keeps it up.

(AP) GITMO Indefinite Detention and Torture Facility--January 27, 2004

US Military officials, under the condition of anonymity, have for the first time confirmed that military interrogators have used tactics that some may deem improper under the standards of set forth in the internationally recognized "Standards of Etiquette for Unlawful Combatants" authored byEmily Post.

For instance, one official, speaking on the condition of anonymity revealed that interrogators often asked questions of the detainees (who are held without access to food, water, medicine, or even legal representation) in a stern and intimidating voice. Ms. Post recommends that conversation be kept on non-offensive topics such as the beautiful tropical weather or current events provided such events are not political or sports related. Another official with access to the base, who asked not to be named, stated that interrogators sometimes asked detainees to sit in uncomfortable chairs and often finished such requests without saying "Please." Such tactics are common in third world countries where the goal of interrogators is to mentally break down subjects and elicit useful information about tactics, strategy, and targets. In the words of one purple dinosaur who disapprovesof the detainees' treatment "We're talking 'bout please and thank you, They're called the magic words. If you want nice things to happen, They're the words that should be heard!"

Worse yet are allegations that dessert forks were sometimes set beside place settings rather than above them. Detainees were allegedly confused and insulted by the incult behavior of guards. One unsubstantiated report reveals that the ends of new rolls of toilet paper were not folded over to make a triangle. Other anonymous reports include leaving toilet seats up, failing to tip bathroom attendants, and the sine qua non of gauche behavior, guards blowing their noses and then peering into handkerchief as if precious stones had fallen out of their heads. Were it not for the sheer volume of such reports, the fantastic and horrific nature of the claims would seem to detract from the report's credibility.

The allegations continue to raise questions about what some call the appalling treatment of political prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base. Suzie Hairpits, heiress to the Gedney pickle fortune and co-chairperson of Stop Humane Inmate Treatment Without Appropriate Decorum (SHITWAD) reacted with shock. "This just proves what an evil, evil man Donald Rumsfeld really is!" she stated from her north facing office in midtown Manhattan. "I mean is it any coincidence that Rumsfeld sounds like a Dutch name, Ronald Reagan's nickname was Dutch, the Pennsylvania Dutch were from Germany, and Germany is where Hitler was? We SHITWADs are hotly opposed tothis kind of treatment. People who enjoy killing innocent people are people too." When asked about the consequences for these detainees if they are ever released into civil society, Ms. Hairpits responded "Well they'll have to be completely retrained before they can attend any society parties thrown by Michael Moore, Jacques Chirac, or Sean Penn." A grievous injustice to be sure.

Blogger Bash Reminder

Just so that it doesn't slip off the radar screen. I'm linking back to my original post on the February 26 Iowa Blogger Bash being held at Wellman's Pub on Ingersoll in Des Moines.

See you there.

Elsewhere In Iowa Blogging

Kris tackles the latest Iowa Court of Appeals decisions.

State 29 gives the Grow Iowa (Government) Values Fund the business.

U.S. Foreign Policy: Emerging Alliances or Crumbling Facade

I noticed these two articles yesterday. While not necessarily diametrically opposed, they do seem to look at America's foreign policy through radically different lenses.

The first is from Collin May at the Eursoc blog. His thesis is that the relief efforts to the Indonesian tsunami provide a glimpse into an emerging Asian alliance that consists of traditional allies like the U.S. and Australia, but also includes Japan and India. The emergence of this alliance, the author postulates, of greater significance than the war in Iraq when it comes to America's power and prestige in the world at large.

In contrast, Michael Lind, theorizes that the U.S. is pitching its prestige down a rat hole in Iraq. Further, he believes that the U.S. has become "dispensable" to world relations. That is, that nobody wants to work with us and therefore, we are bound to slide in importance.

Who is correct? Well, I'm far more persuaded by Collin May at Eursoc than by Michael Lind at the New America Foundation. It just strikes me as far more likely that we will have friends and allies in the world. It may not always be the same ones and it may not be the same as we've worked with over the last century, but we will have friends.

Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth (And for Good Reason)

You know, they say that you should never look a gift horse in the mouth. Generally speaking, I have the same attitude towards proposed tax cuts; you shouldn't look them in the mouth. When one is offered up, especially in high-tax Iowa, you take it. However, the proposal to remove income tax liability on those under 30 is just moronic.

This idea is bad. Very bad. There are probably dozens of reasons why (State 29 and Joe@Roth CPA point out many), but I'll limit myself to just a couple of big ones.

It's bad politics. So, let's say that we eliminate taxes on Iowans under the age of 30. Great. Now what. Everyone else in the state, from little old ladies to the corner grocery store to fathers of three, is still paying taxes that are on the high end of the national spectrum. Those folks might want to see a little tax relief as well.

Problem. Younger people tend to be on the lower end of the income spectrum. By removing them, now only the higher earners are left. So, next year, when you come back with a proposal to lower taxes on those folks, our friends on the other side of the aisle will pan-fry you in the "tax cuts for the wealthy" skillet.

Moreover, the other side of the equation works as well. If you ever try to reinstate taxes on the under 30's, the other side will bludgeon you with the "putting the burden on the poorest and most unfortunate amongst us" hammer. And the corollary to this fact is that you've created an entire new group of people who are now government service users but who aren't government service payors. That is, you've created a new group of people sucking on the government teat who don't realize that somebody has to foot the bill.

As a general rule, when elections roll around we have a name for people who are government consumers but not government payors. They're called "Democrats."

That's why flatter tax rates and across the board tax cuts are better policy for Republicans. It keeps more people involved in sharing the burden of government. It doesn't pit different groups of the population against each other through class envy or age group interest groups.

This proposal does nothing except make our steep progressive rates a sheer cliff.

It treats the symptom rather than the disease. Young people don't leave Iowa because of high tax rates, at least not directly. No. They leave because of a couple of key factors.

First off is wanderlust. Who doesn't dream of going out into the world and conquering it--small town kid makes good and returns triumphantly. There is never going to be a better time to make your attempt than when you finish up school (either high school or college). So, kids bolt to Chicago, L.A., New York, Minneapolis, Denver, Dallas, or Atlanta to give life a whirl. Short of developing some big cities or making our existing cities more like big cities, we aren't going to avoid losing young ones to those temptations.

Second, and more importantly, there is the issue of jobs. Young people leave because places like Chicago and Minneapolis have lots of jobs. If you graduate from Iowa State with a degree in aerospace engineering, you'll notice a real dearth of jobs in that field in Iowa. If you graduate with a degree from the prestigious creative writing program at Iowa, you'll probably move to New York or L.A. to be near the industries most likely to utilize create writing. Those same pressures apply to just about every degree offered by our state's colleges and universities.

The proposal to nix taxes for under 30's does nothing to deal with either of the reasons kids leave Iowa. And those reasons are the real disease. The kids leaving is just a symptom of that disease.

So, if a proposal to nix taxes for everyone under 30 doesn't actually treat the disease, what would?

Answer: an environment friendlier to business and, especially, entrepreneurs. Eliminate red tape that hinders and unnecessarily complicates the running of a business. Drop the corporate tax rate so that we don't have to pay Maytag every few years to hang around, and so that the next time we have a Gateway Computers, we don't run it off to South Dakota. Just those two things would go a long way to curing our aging blues.

And, here's a bonus. When there are jobs, there are people. When there are people, you start to develop that high-energy vibe that the kids are looking for when they get out of school.

Election Fraud in the Evergreen State

First it was half the voters in one precinct using the same home address. Then it was 1800 more votes than registered voters in King County. Now it's a boatload of fellons illegally voting in King County. According to the Power Line guys, even the Seattle Times is starting to notice. Mostly, the entirety of coverage this story is getting is due to the efforts of one Washington blogger at Sound Politics.

Advantage blogosphere!

Things That Might Make You Go 'Hmmmm...'

Homercles notices that Al-Zarqawi and a speaker at an International Socialist Organization event apparently share the same view of democracy.

Paying Businesses to Stay is Folly

Don put me onto an article from the Quad City Times which, to my mind anyway, does a good job of pointing out the folly of trying to buy the loyalty of businesses by cutting them a check from the state treasury.


It seems that about a decade or so ago, Illinois dropped $13 million on Maytag in direct payments and tax breaks to keep a plan in Galesburg. So, how'd it work out? Not so well. A decade later, the plant is gone.

So, now Iowa is giving Maytag $1.5 million. As the article asks:

If $13 million in taxpayer incentives buys jobs for a decade, how much can Iowa expect for $1.5 million?

Google works in mysterious ways…

While perusing our incoming referrals via Sitemeter, I like to check the various Google and other searches to see how people who aren’t regular readers find us. And I spot one in which the search phrase was,

“causes of rectal hemoraging”

Hmmm. I don’t recall any column about this, unless, maybe it was something Chad was interested in. Chad’s our designated authority on medical issues and stuff; yeah, that’s the ticket.

Curious, I double-click on the referral and when the search results come up, there we are! Number ONE in the quest for causes of rectal hemoraging, it’s Tusk & Talon. Talk about a feeling of pride. But wait a minute…The excerpt from the ‘article’ reads,

“... up with this tripe or the complete cranium-rectal inversion necessary ... But if we’re going to look for secondary causes – or for ... You start hemoraging business ...”

Researching the indicated archives of August, 2003, I fail to find any such post, but I do find the line, “But if we’re going to look for secondary causes” in a post on a reduction in crime rates. Cranium-rectal inversion probably speaks to a Des Moines Register editorial and [hemorrhaging] business probably refers to Iowa tax policies.

I see what happened. The Googler didn’t use quotes (or a dictionary, for that matter) and wound up with an amalgamation of snippets from unrelated articles. It’s a little disturbing to think this unknown person likely had a serious question about an important, maybe urgent, matter and wound up with our bloviating. Yikes.

Inhibiting Meth Production

State 29 suggests that perhaps instead of making it difficult for honest people to Sudafed and other ephedrine-containing cold medications, why don't we just ban the pill form altogether.

That's an idea. Another one I'd like to spend a little more time looking at is additives for anhydrous ammonia.

There at least two additives which can be mixed into the anhydrous that screw up the "cooking" process.

The first, GloTell, causes the anhydrous to dye everything it comes into contact with a nice hot pink. The hot pink stain remains visible on surfaces for at least two days. Under a UV light it remains visible for several days. GloTell also has the affect of watering down the meth that is produced.

Another additive developed at Iowa State renders the anhydrous useless for producing meth. It simply prevents the necessary chemical reactions from taking place.

Not only would using anhydrous ammonia additives be less annoying to regular consumers, but it's easier to police as well. Rather than having to police dozens of convenience stores, groceries, drug stores, and gas stations, you only have to monitor one or two farm supply outlets in most counties.

And yes, I realize that there is a method of meth production that doesn't use anhydrous ammonia, but I suspect that the outlets for iodinie crystals and red phosphorous are all that common. At any rate, they aren't as common as convenience stores, gas stations, and groceries.

The ephedrine-based cold medications may be the essential ingredient, but, as far as I know, they have to be reduced by other chemical ingredients. Wouldn't it be easier to monitor the much narrower distribution network for those other necessary ingredients rather than monitoring thousands of Sudafed outlets (and inconveniencing every person who's got a cough and runny nose)?

(And yes, I'm open to someone explaining to me why it's easier to monitor all these cold medication stores rather than the chemical wholesalers.)

Where Can I Get Some Good Bosnian Food?

Strangely enough, perhaps, the answer appears to be "Des Moines."

I don't know why I think this is cool, but I do.

Blogger Bash Update

Okay, here it is. I'm calling the ball.

Date: Saturday, February 26, 2005.

Time: 6:00 P.M.

Location: Des Moines, IA. Wellman's. On Ingersoll.

Invited: Iowa Bloggers, Devoted Readers, and Significant Others of Each, Respectively.

Ink it into your calendar. Feel free to spread the word to other corners of the Iowa Blogosphere.

Hope to See You There.

Update Go HERE for a map to Wellman's and an option for obtaining written door-to-door directions.

Let's Play A Guessing Game

I'm going to throw out some statements and quotes from European leaders. Your goal is to correctly guess what they are talking about.

Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero said Europe was "unstoppable" when it pooled its efforts.

So, did the nations of Europe band together in a massive civilian mobilation to prevent famine and disease in Sri Lanka or use their combined militaries to prevent the wholesale slaughter of women and children in the Sudan.

Nope.

Let me give you another statement.

"Good old Europe has made this possible," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder told a packed hall...

Okay, perhaps it's a series of speaches given in testament to the glories of western civilization like democracy and respect for human rights.

Uh-uh. Try again.

Perhaps this will help.

French President Jacques Chirac called the project a "big success" and said: "We can, and we must, go further on this path of European construction so essential for growth and employment."

Ah, there it is. Construction and employment. Must be some sort of public works project.

Sorry.

Here's one last quote.

"The European states -- so easily accused of weakness -- backed this fantastic challenge 35 years ago and have believed in the A380," [Noel Forgeard] said.

That's a big hint. The A380 mentioned is the the new superjumbo airliner from Airbus. That's right. All these statements are about an airplane. A darned big airplane, but an airplane nonetheless.

I'm especially fond of Airbus chief Forgeard hinting that this airplane is somehow a counterargument to American claims of European military irrelevance and moral weakness.

Yes, I'm sure that some tin-pot dictator wannabe is sitting around right now and saying, "Hmmm....I was planning on playing Chirac and Schroeder like fiddles, utilizing their own weakness to my advantage. But dammit if they didn't go build one mutha of a big airplane. Now they can fly in upwards of 700 EU delegates in 21-pitch layout, or 400 in unparalleled airline comfort, to the nearest international airport that meets EU safety guidelines. I'm going to have to reevaluate my opinion of them. Perhaps they aren't the Play-Doh spined pansies that I thought."

What a bunch of blowhards.

Iowa Blogger Bash

Wanted to let everyone know that I hadn't forgotten about the Iowa Blogger Get-Together. I'm going to kick some ideas around with Chad tomorrow and then get a post up, probably tomorrow evening, with a date and location.

We Can Only Hope...

That this is true.

A human rights group claimed Tuesday that it has obtained video footage showing dissident activities in North Korea, with demands for freedom and democracy written over a poster of North Korea's leader, Kim Jong Il.

Hogberg: Social Security Reform a Done Deal

David Hogberg predicts that Social Security will be reformed.

His reasoning? Ted Kennedy is the front man for the Democrats' efforts to thwart reform.

And I’m not joking about predicting that this means Social Security reform is a sure thing. If Kennedy is the face for the opposition to reform, then how do you spell Democratic Strategy? I-N-C-O-M-P-E-T-E-N-T. Guess Obama was too busy.

Let's hope Dave's prognosticating is as strong now as when he correctly predicted the Presidential election winner for every state.


P.S. Also, as Dave points out, State 29 has been hitting on all eight when it comes to Social Security. Check it out here, here, here, and here.

An open letter to Paul Krugman

Pontificator on economic matters for the New York Times


Dear Dr. Krugman,

I am writing to you because I believe I have found the solution to the looming Social Security crisis that has been so much in the news recently. I need your help to work out the details and to publicize this dramatic innovation, so I hope I can enlist your cooperation. You are ideally suited for this task in your dual positions as a professor of economics at Princeton University and as opinion writer for the New York Times. If I may say so, those are two of the most respected and influential positions in the country. If only you were also a trial lawyer, you would have the trifecta. Or hat trick, if you prefer hockey to horse racing.

Please don’t take my noting your accomplishments and importance as meaningless flattery. I know you are much too sensible to fall for such a transparent trick. I only mention them to impress upon you why you are the perfect one to advance this concept.

As you know, the excess contributions to Social Security - I’m told it is approximately $180 billion per year at this point - are loaned to the federal government in exchange for interest paying bonds that make up the SS trust fund. The amount of the annual surplus is expected to gradually diminish until twelve or thirteen years from now when that year’s contributions will no longer cover the payouts to retirees. At that point, the administrators of the fund will have to start redeeming the government bonds and use the earned interest and principal to make up the shortfall. It is feared that somewhere around the middle of the century, the bonds in the trust fund will have been used up and the payout (benefits) may have to be reduced.

Are you impressed with my understanding of the problem? I hope you will see that the thoroughness of my research carries over to the solution I’ve come up with. Here is my solution – brilliant, if I may say so, in its simplicity.

The federal government needs only to increase the interest rate it pays on new bonds it puts into the trust fund! The additional interest that is thereby earned will add enough to the trust fund so that it will never go dry.

I don’t know what interest rate it would take to accomplish this – that’s where I need your help. I’m sure you can work out the required interest rate to insure that the trust fund will remain solvent. And the beauty of the plan is that no one gets hurt! There will be plenty of money, no fear of reduced benefits and no SS tax increase. It’s a win-win solution all the way around, and I’m sure you’re just the man to appreciate how well it will work.

It’s not necessary for you to thank me. The appreciation of a grateful nation is all the thanks I need.

Your devoted but humble fan,

Bloggerdon

PS. Just in case you can’t work out the details to make this plan work, I have lots of other ideas that I can divulge later.

New Iowa Supreme Court Decisions

Kris has her regular update of Iowa Supreme Court decisions posted over at Random Mentality.

Just When I Think....

That the Iowa Legislature has run out of bad ideas, they keep coming up with more.

Thanks to State 29 for pointing these out.

Attention Monty Python Fans

The Des Moines Civic Center has kicked in $25K to an association of theaters (apparently there is such a thing) in order to secure a spot on a national tour of "Spamalot," a musical adaptation of the 1970's movie "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."

And no, this isn't some low-rent production. It stars David Hyde Pierce (aka Niles Crane on the long-running NBC show "Frasier"), Tim Curry, and Hank Azaria (the voice behind about half the characters on "The Simpsons").

On the downside, you'll have to wait until 2006...if there's a touring production...which is no guarantee.

Telephone Deregulation for Iowa

Outstanding. Governor Vilsack, in his State of the State Address, proposed that Iowa move forward with deregulating the telephone industry.

We need a new regulatory structure and design, one that moves away from a system that regulates price to one that allows the market to regulate price while we regulate and guarantee service, access and quality.

While the last phrase, "while we regulate and guarantee service" sort of makes me cringe, the first part of the sentence makes me smile with glee.

The proposal is to deregulate the business market first. It isn't much, but it is a step in the right direction for the business environment in Iowa.

The Blogging Revolution Continues Apace

If you want proof that blogging has really entered the mainstream, look no further than the Fastlane, a blog authored by the Vice Chairman of General Motors, Robert Lutz.

Also worth checking out is the Counterterrorism Blog authored by a group of experts on security and counterterrorism. And when I say "experts" it isn't just whistling dixie. Just check out their biographies here and here.

Sertoma Speaking

Today I've been invited to present a short discussion on blogs and blogging for the local chapter of Sertoma.

Update: Perhaps I should expand upon this somewhat cryptic post.

As indicated, I gave a short talk today for the weekly meeting of the Des Moines Sertoma Club. The short post was done as a demonstration of just how easy creating a blog post really is.

If anyone present at the presentation today stops by, let me say "Thanks" for the opportunity to discuss blogs and blogging. I hope it was at least a little bit entertaining and informational. Be sure to check out the links in the sidebar. I especially encourage people to check out the other Iowa blogs. (And for a far more exhaustive list of Iowa-based bloggers, check out Random Mentality.) It's a great big world of blogs out there, you're sure to find something you like.

Blog Keeping Matters

I just updated the blogroll. Here are the highlights.

*With some chagrin I removed Steven Den Beste from the U.S. Bloggers section. I decided it was sort of silly to keep him there when we know he isn't going to be blogging any more.

*However, I did create a new little section for Steven towards the bottom with a link to what he referred to has "The Essential Library." Just about everything in the Essential Library is worth reading.

*I added a new section of Random Online Resources. There's no theme or particular utility to the sites to which I'm linking here. It's just stuff I find interesting. The most useful is probably Dave Leip's Election Atlas. If you want to see the voting tallies of just about any U.S. Presidential Election, then Dave's your man.

*Tim Blair's link has been updated to his new address.

I've been watching quite a bit of the History Channel recently. And I've got to say that I'm getting really irritated with the promos for its upcoming series on the French Revolution. Not because I'm opposed to studying the French Revolution or anything like that. No, what sets my teeth to grinding is the tag line, "The French Revolutions: The Revolutions of Revolutions."

Now, I realize that I'm an American chauvanist, so perhaps my opinion should be taken with a grain of salt, but the revolution that set the world on fire was the American Revolution.

Don't get me wrong, the French Revolution did demonstrate how not to let a revolution spin out of control into chaos. It proved that there is a difference between liberty and licenciousness.

In contrast, the American Revolution introduced the ideas of equality of all ment into the Enlightenment world. The langauge of freedom and liberty that is still spreading across the world pretty much initated here. I would argue that Revolution of Revolutions was our very own American Revolution.

Total Domination

It's no secret that all of us here at the T'n'T are college football junkies. So, I'm taking full credit, on behalf of all of us, for our respective alma maters all winning their bowl games. Iowa State dispatched Miami of Ohio in the Independence Bowl. The Hawks won the Citrus, er, I mean, Capital One Bowl in dramatic, last-second, fashion. And, last but not least, USC systematically dismantled the Oklahoma Sooners in the Orange Bowl to claim the National Champtionship.

(Incidentally, you can buy your Trojan National Championship Gear here.)

I'm Back

Sorry to leave everyone hanging there for the last couple of days. The computer has been on the fritz. Last night I finally decided to bite the bullet. I finally gave up limping along and decided to just wipe the hard drive. After that, I spent the better part of the last couple evenings reinstalling software. A couple of phone calls to various tech supports and a three hour download of internet software later, I think that the problems are licked.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that there will be no further blogging hindrances fore the foreseeable future.

How many Americans have died because of this?

The Democrat Party Terrorist Protection Committee is on full action alert today. In another round of their campaign to discredit the president and all of his people, they are grilling Alberto Gonzales, the nominee for Attorney General over his role in a requested interpretation of allowable and legal interrogation techniques for terrorist prisoners. The Democrats, led by Senators Biden and Kennedy have conflated the treatment of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib with the Taliban at Guantanamo because it suits their purpose to confuse the issue. Then they imply that an Iraqi prisoner with panties on his head is somehow equivalent to an American civilian captive with no head.*

If I were the president, I would rescind Gonzales’ nomination and leave John Ashcroft in the job, just to piss them off. And I would tell him to search every library and porn store in the country to see what Kennedy, Biden and Durbin are looking at. No, wait. That would be a waste of valuable time and there are more important things to do. I’d just have some college age intern in the DOJ make up stuff and leak it to the press.

The problem is that we need information from these prisoners and we may not be getting it. While we are debating whether withholding sports equipment and cable TV from these savages is “tantamount to torture”, car bombs and mortar attacks are taking place all over Iraq. We think their ability to generate attacks in our country and the rest of the world has been damaged, but we don’t know for sure. And we really need to know.

The amazing part is that as torture methods go, we’re not even talking about ripping out fingernails and wiring genitalia up to doorbells. What our military interrogators are allowed to do is the most humane, politically correct, non-invasive, non-coercive smiley-faced silliness ever. The aberrant treatment of the Abu Ghraib prisoners is admitted by all authorities to be outside the limits on what was permissible. But in charging Gonzales with violations of the Geneva Convention, the “loyal opposition” is further limiting our ability to gather intelligence.
Heather MacDonald has researched the methods used on captives in the War on Terror and knows what works, what doesn’t, and why it doesn’t.

"Some of the al-Qaida fighters had received resistance training, which taught that Americans were strictly limited in how they could question prisoners. Failure to cooperate, the al-Qaida manuals revealed, carried no penalties and certainly no risk of torture—a sign, gloated the manuals, of American weakness."

So, if we’re not permitted to use harsh treatment of the prisoners to get information, perhaps they will talk if we offer them ice cream? Again, from the MacDonald article:

"The torture narrative holds that illegal methods used at Guantánamo migrated to Iraq and resulted in the abuse of prisoners there.

"So what were these cruel and degrading practices? For one, providing a detainee an incentive for cooperation—such as a cigarette or, especially favored in Cuba, a McDonald’s Filet-O-Fish sandwich or a Twinkie unless specifically approved by the secretary of defense. In other words, if an interrogator had learned that Usama bin
Ladin’s accountant loved Cadbury chocolate, and intended to enter the interrogation booth armed with a Dairy Milk Wafer to extract the name of a Saudi financier, he needed to “specifically determine that military necessity requires” the use of the Dairy Milk Wafer and send an alert to Secretary Rumsfeld that chocolate was to be deployed against an al-Qaida operative."

So while Zarqawi runs, hides and plans car-bombs in Iraq and Bin Ladin makes videotapes in a cave in Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iran, the Democrat Senators demonstrate their “support for the troops” by trashing Gonzales. If only they could wire his genitals to that red light that signals when questioning time is up, maybe they could get the answers they want out of him.


*Mara Laiason, on Fox News Special Report tonight made the insipid, but not unusual claim that if Americans treat prisoners badly; any of our people the enemy captures will suffer. Apparently she thinks that if we are only nicer, they will start chopping heads off with one smooth stroke rather than sawing them off with a rusty knife.

Cool Cool Cool

Cool, just a day later and we've got several people on board for an Iowa Blogger Bash. I'm stoked!

Okay things to consider.

Date: I was sort of thinking some time in February. That'd give people a little time to decompress from the Christmas season while providing for a planning period.

Location: This will be the tough one. As best as I can tell, we've got a cluster of bloggers here in the Des Moines area and then another cluster over in eastern Iowa. Do we have any western Iowans interested in meeting the rest of the crew that need to be taken into account?

Let me kick this one around a little bit more. (And if people have whooptastic ideas, let me hear them.)