Surprisingly, this post has nothing to do with Pahrump being the nearest point from my house where prostitution is legal. This has 100% to do with the politics of Pahrump.
First, what happens in most of the United States when an election ends in a tie? There’s a special election to resolve the tie. In Pahrump, however, the tie is resolved via the casting of lots. Granted, this is true for any tied election in Nevada as Nevada Revised Statute 293.400 states “the county clerk shall summon the candidates who have received the tie votes to appear before the county clerk at a time and place designated by the county clerk and determine the tie by lot.”Here’s a link to more information about this story.
Second, there is currently a dispute between the Nye county sheriff’s department and the district attorney’s office. A sheriff deputy arrested the district attorney in May for misuse of public funds. The problem is that the district attorney refuses to prosecute himself on the charges. More information can be found here.
I found both of these stories amusing and I figured you might also.
I can’t take it anymore. I am sick of politicians trying to win over voters by calling legislation “common sense.” I can’t really blame them though since it seems a large section of the American population is far too willing to say “Hmm, I have no idea what they are talking about, but they said it’s ‘common-sense legislation’ and common sense is good, so the legislation must be good!”
What really set me off about this finally is that while I was driving home tonight, I heard a clip of Obama from some recent speech where he said “we’re going to enact ‘common-sense’ regulations on Wall Street.”
Anyways, I am just sick of hearing about “common-sense conservative solutions”, “common-sense gun regulation”, “common-sense bank regulation”, “common-sense Wall Street regulation”, “common-sense healthcare reform”, “common-sense drug regulation” and any other legislation crammed down the throat of America as “common sense.”
Government officials, stop trying to dupe us into thinking that this crap is good for us. Start trying to sell legislation to the American public based on its merits, not on buzzwords. Treat us like we have some fracking common sense of our own.
I found a clip of John Stossel’s show from December 17, 2009 where he is discussing the state of healthcare and what reforms, if any, need to happen. He has the CEO of Whole Foods Market, John Mackey, as a guest. If you have not heard about the controversy surrounding Mackey’s healthcare comments, read here.
Unfortunately, I am not a huge fan of Stossel’s new talkshow format, the clips below are still pretty informative.
I found the following article at the Tenth Ammendment Center’s website: Health Care and the Fallacy of Positive Rights. It gives a good brief description of Positive vs Negative rights.
Whatever your views on “Man-Made Global Climate Change,” it is hard to ignore the contents of the recently released emails from CRU due to their system being hacked. If you have not heard about this story, here are a few links:
I was recently flying out of the Lihue airport on Kaua’i, Hawai’i when I saw this poster (shown below) next to the TSA security station. It was signed by what I assume is a majority, if not all, of the TSA employees working at the airport.
I, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the
Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic;
that I will bear a true faith allegiance to the same;
that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion;
and that I will continue to well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I have already entered;
So help me God
I have one huge problem with this poster. How many of the TSA employees actually know the contents of the Constitution? How are they supposed to “support and defend” something when they have no idea what it actually says?
Before I continue, I do have to make a confession; I have worked for the federal government in the past and signed one of these oaths before I studied the Constitution and knew exactly what it said or meant. Also, many of the people I worked with had also signed the Oath of Office without really knowing much about it. It wasn’t until about a year into my employment before I started thinking “I signed this oath, I should really study what the Constitution actually contains.”
I honestly wish that the federal government would make someone prove that they know the contents of the Constitution via some type of questioning before they allow the person to sign the Oath of Office. If nothing else, make it like every DMV I’ve been to by giving the new employee a preparation book and then a 20 or 30 question test.
I am really interesting in knowing what others think of this issue. Please leave a comment with your thoughts.
I found this little video on YouTube explaining the rise in taxes caused by the Cap and Trade legislation. I would normally like to keep this blog to my own writing and thoughts, but this is too good to not share.
One of the big stories today has been the Supreme Court’s decision about discriminatory practices for firefighter promotions in New Hampshire. As far as I can gather, the town in question gives a set of tests to determine which firefighters to promote. When the city looked at the test results, “not enough” minorities had scored a promotion so they threw out the tests completely and denied 19 whites and 1 hispanic their promotions. The city in question said that it through out the tests for fear of the minorities in the department suing over discrimination.
There are a number of things that I don’t know about in this case. First, I assume that the tests cover things that a firefighter needs to know and needs to be proficient in to lead others and to do his job well. Second, given #1, I cannot see how any type of racial bias could be in the tests; you are either a good leader and firefighter or you are not.
Seems like the best thing to do would have been to give the promotions based on the requirements that had been set out. Then, if needed, take a look at the tests procedures and content to make sure they dealt only with things needed by a leader and firefighter for promotion.
Overall, I am happy to see that the court ruled as it did. It is scary though that this, like the “DC Gun Case” (District of Columbia v. Heller) last year, this case was decided by only a 5-4 decision. These next few months will be very interesting as Obama’s nominees for the Supreme Court are confirmed.
