The NY Times reports Taliban tactics in Afgahnistan are working.
We're putting our troops in a situation where they cannot win. Things like this are bound to happen, and while the individual troops who did this should be investigated and punished (assuming they shouldn't have killed Civilians) the politicians and policy makers who put them there must be held accountable. This is your fault.
Sunday, March 4, 2007
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
Better Off Living In Shadows
The text message from my ex-girlfriend read, "Pablo was deported." Pablo (not his real name) is my ex's brother-in-law. I replied, "Really?" to which she sent, "Yea, he's sitting in jail right now."
A little background info, Pablo is married and just welcomed his second daughter into the world. His wife and daughters are U.S. citizens and he has been a legal resident for about seven or eight years. He and his wife own their South Jordan home, she worked at the DMV until the second girl was born and now she stays at home. Pablo works two jobs.
Pablo and his wife met while she was still living with her mom, her mom wasn't thrilled about the two of them seeing each other, so they ran away to Mexico. About a year later they decided to come back. I'm not sure if they were married yet or not, but I don't think they were because Pablo tried to use someone else's documents in order to get into the country. I say tried because he was caught and charged with impersonating a U.S. citizen and sent right back.
Then Pablo applied for and was granted legal residency. He had worked as a cook and chef at various restaurants ever since. After a while he decided he wanted to become a U.S. Citizen. Whoops.
He went straight from the interview to jail. After seeing him for the last time in the U.S. (for a while anyway) his wife was being escorted out of the building by an INS agent. Seeing she was distraught and perhaps recognized the stupidity of the situation the agent said, "You know, we're not charging him with a new crime. We're not going to be looking for him if he comes back. Just as long as he stays out of trouble."
Pablo's wife talked to several attorneys, all of whom said to fight it would be a waste of money and just prolong Pablo's jail stay, since bail was not an option. I guess the guy with a brand new baby and a house payment was a flight risk.
The U.S. immigration policy is ridiculous. Here's a guy who messed up about ten years ago, but since then has been trying to do it right. Why was he ever granted legal residency at all if the punishment for his prior offense was still in effect? How could his residency be revoked with no new charges? What the hell are we trying to accomplish with this policy of deportation with the understanding that if he makes it back into the country illegally nobody will be looking for him? Doesn't that just perpetuate the problem?
Somebody please fix this. It's broken.
A little background info, Pablo is married and just welcomed his second daughter into the world. His wife and daughters are U.S. citizens and he has been a legal resident for about seven or eight years. He and his wife own their South Jordan home, she worked at the DMV until the second girl was born and now she stays at home. Pablo works two jobs.
Pablo and his wife met while she was still living with her mom, her mom wasn't thrilled about the two of them seeing each other, so they ran away to Mexico. About a year later they decided to come back. I'm not sure if they were married yet or not, but I don't think they were because Pablo tried to use someone else's documents in order to get into the country. I say tried because he was caught and charged with impersonating a U.S. citizen and sent right back.
Then Pablo applied for and was granted legal residency. He had worked as a cook and chef at various restaurants ever since. After a while he decided he wanted to become a U.S. Citizen. Whoops.
He went straight from the interview to jail. After seeing him for the last time in the U.S. (for a while anyway) his wife was being escorted out of the building by an INS agent. Seeing she was distraught and perhaps recognized the stupidity of the situation the agent said, "You know, we're not charging him with a new crime. We're not going to be looking for him if he comes back. Just as long as he stays out of trouble."
Pablo's wife talked to several attorneys, all of whom said to fight it would be a waste of money and just prolong Pablo's jail stay, since bail was not an option. I guess the guy with a brand new baby and a house payment was a flight risk.
The U.S. immigration policy is ridiculous. Here's a guy who messed up about ten years ago, but since then has been trying to do it right. Why was he ever granted legal residency at all if the punishment for his prior offense was still in effect? How could his residency be revoked with no new charges? What the hell are we trying to accomplish with this policy of deportation with the understanding that if he makes it back into the country illegally nobody will be looking for him? Doesn't that just perpetuate the problem?
Somebody please fix this. It's broken.
Thursday, February 8, 2007
I'm Taking My Ball and Going Home
Before you read the rest of this post let me just say I'm a soccer fan. Not only that, I'm a Real Salt Lake fan. Now that that's been disclosed I'll get to the point.
I'm not gonna pretend this is the only way to see it, but here's my biased history of the stadium debacle:
Major League Soccer has realized that teams in the league must own the stadiums in which they play in order for the league to make it in the long run. (And making it in the long run is only way the quality of the league will ever even approach the quality of european leagues.)
When MLS granted expansion rights to Dave Checketts and the city of Salt Lake there was an understood provision that progress toward a stadium begin quickly. Not to mention the fact that Real Salt Lake would not start making money until it could count on revenue from parking and concession sales, including (and importantly) beer sales which are not allowed in Rice-Eccles Stadium. Right now all the revenue from parking and food goes to the University. With its own stadium Real Salt Lake would also get revenue from naming rights.
So Dave Checketts immediately got to work on building a stadium. He said, many times, that his "dream" was to have a downtown stadium. He began negotiating with Earl Holden about acquiring the block just south of Little America, in between 600 and 700 South and Main Street and West Temple. Salt Lake City's mayor Rocky Anderson loved the idea, became involved with the negotiations and proposed using money from the Redevelopment Agency to help fund the project, perhaps even a deal where RDA money would be used to buy the land which would then be leased to Real Salt Lake.
So far the story of the soccer-specific stadium in salt lake city certainly seemed sensible. But, in the first of many acts of immaturity to lace our yarn, Curtis Bramble of the Utah State Senate proposes a bill specifically prohibiting the use of RDA money for projects like the one Rocky had offered. Why? Well, Bramble would claim that it was in an effort to "prevent abuses" of RDA money. Many familiar with Utah politics have suggested that State politicos didn't want Rocky to have another feather in his cap. Downtown Salt Lake City could certainly use what urban planners would call an "anchor" for the south. Rocky and RSL argued that projects like the proposed stadium are exactly what RDA money was meant for. Alas, Rocky is not well-liked in state politics. Hated might be an appropriate term. The Legislature blocked a development that would be good for their constituents just to excersize a personal vendetta against another politician. (I said biased history didn't I?)
Under the new laws the only stadium plan that seemed to make sense was one offered by Sandy City. Real Salt Lake chose it.
Interestingly, after it became clear that RSL would not be building in downtown Salt Lake City the Legislature voted to repeal the law restricting such use of RDA money.
With the Sandy stadium in mind and a preliminary deal already in place between RSL, Sandy City, and Salt Lake County, State Legislators released money from the Transient Room Tax to Salt Lake County. The County then decided they didn't like the deal. Re-negotiations began and a deal was reached that Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon called a much better deal for the citizens of Salt Lake County. This deal had the County purchasing the land and leasing it back to Real Salt Lake, it also required improvements to the site's infrastructure, things like sewer system upgrades, road expansion, and new roads which would be paid for with a combination of the TRT monies and between $8 and $15 million from Sandy City. Private investment would contribute an initial $80 million to the project and up to $450 million if the long-term plans for "Real City" were achieved. A few months after negotiating this new deal Peter Corroon renegged again. The County had taken upon itself the responsibility of evaluating Real Salt Lake's "financial viability" and Pete decided the team needed to be viabler. He said, "no deal" to RSL.
The (expensive) investigation into Real Salt Lake's financial viability was a farce. If Real Salt Lake were to go under the County would have retained ownership of the land, which would have been made much more valuable with development surrounding the stadium. (Even the E-Center has contributed to the development of surrounding land.) The risk to Salt Lake County was always minimal. The one time Corroon was pressed on that fact he responded by saying the County was not in the business of real estate projection. They were, apparently, in the business of Real Salt Lake projection. I think Corroon and the County Council just liked seeing their names in the newspaper and faces on the news. As I'll point out the decision not to fund the stadium was in no way a smart one for Salt Lake County.
Dave Checketts was understandably exacerbated by what happened, but he too acted like a baby. He threatened to move the team within a year. And persistant rumours about St. Louis appeared in both Salt Lake and St. Louis media. If they moved, the team could even keep their RSL logo and monogram!
During all of these goings-on the press was following suit when it came to irresponsibility. The media never once disclosed the details of the deal, such as the fact that the county would own the land, and own the stadium itself after a certain amount of time. Finally, after two years of reporting about the stadium, and publishing op-ed pieces against the "public subsidy of private enterprise" Heather May and the Salt Lake Tribune noted (at the very end of the article) that the Newspaper Agency Corporation, parent company of the Tribune and Deseret News, had received a similar deal to build two of their buildings, one downtown and one in West Valley City. The article also details subsidies given to (Energy Slut) Larry H. Miller for two sports venues, this, again, after two years of printing letters to the editor that suggested RSL do it the way Larry Miller and the Jazz did when "he built the Delta Center with his own money." They were letters to the editor, not articles, but noone bothered to print facts. . . .
It seems there were public officials who realized this was a win win situation. When it looked like Real Salt Lake was really headed for St. Louis, Governer John Huntsman Jr., Rocky Anderson, and State Senate President Valentine came to the rescue. The new deal is exactly the same except it skips Salt Lake County. The State took the TRT money back from Salt Lake County. Real Salt Lake will build their Sandy stadium, Sandy City will kick in, but the ownership of the land will now be the State's, not the County's.
Corroon and the County Council knew this would happen. They knew the money they had received was earmarked for RSL, they knew the State would react. So, if the County doesn't get the tax money and doesn't get the land, how was this at all a responsible decision for the County? Essentially Pete Corroon and co. turned down free land. Well done.
In the end, they're all dumb. It should be a downtown stadium, but politicians (and soccer team owners) can't see past their own egos. And the "journalists" are too busy shaping public opinion to report anything.
Here's to RSL making the playoffs this year. If not I may have to write a post about head coach John Ellinger.
I'm not gonna pretend this is the only way to see it, but here's my biased history of the stadium debacle:
Major League Soccer has realized that teams in the league must own the stadiums in which they play in order for the league to make it in the long run. (And making it in the long run is only way the quality of the league will ever even approach the quality of european leagues.)
When MLS granted expansion rights to Dave Checketts and the city of Salt Lake there was an understood provision that progress toward a stadium begin quickly. Not to mention the fact that Real Salt Lake would not start making money until it could count on revenue from parking and concession sales, including (and importantly) beer sales which are not allowed in Rice-Eccles Stadium. Right now all the revenue from parking and food goes to the University. With its own stadium Real Salt Lake would also get revenue from naming rights.
So Dave Checketts immediately got to work on building a stadium. He said, many times, that his "dream" was to have a downtown stadium. He began negotiating with Earl Holden about acquiring the block just south of Little America, in between 600 and 700 South and Main Street and West Temple. Salt Lake City's mayor Rocky Anderson loved the idea, became involved with the negotiations and proposed using money from the Redevelopment Agency to help fund the project, perhaps even a deal where RDA money would be used to buy the land which would then be leased to Real Salt Lake.
So far the story of the soccer-specific stadium in salt lake city certainly seemed sensible. But, in the first of many acts of immaturity to lace our yarn, Curtis Bramble of the Utah State Senate proposes a bill specifically prohibiting the use of RDA money for projects like the one Rocky had offered. Why? Well, Bramble would claim that it was in an effort to "prevent abuses" of RDA money. Many familiar with Utah politics have suggested that State politicos didn't want Rocky to have another feather in his cap. Downtown Salt Lake City could certainly use what urban planners would call an "anchor" for the south. Rocky and RSL argued that projects like the proposed stadium are exactly what RDA money was meant for. Alas, Rocky is not well-liked in state politics. Hated might be an appropriate term. The Legislature blocked a development that would be good for their constituents just to excersize a personal vendetta against another politician. (I said biased history didn't I?)
Under the new laws the only stadium plan that seemed to make sense was one offered by Sandy City. Real Salt Lake chose it.
Interestingly, after it became clear that RSL would not be building in downtown Salt Lake City the Legislature voted to repeal the law restricting such use of RDA money.
With the Sandy stadium in mind and a preliminary deal already in place between RSL, Sandy City, and Salt Lake County, State Legislators released money from the Transient Room Tax to Salt Lake County. The County then decided they didn't like the deal. Re-negotiations began and a deal was reached that Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon called a much better deal for the citizens of Salt Lake County. This deal had the County purchasing the land and leasing it back to Real Salt Lake, it also required improvements to the site's infrastructure, things like sewer system upgrades, road expansion, and new roads which would be paid for with a combination of the TRT monies and between $8 and $15 million from Sandy City. Private investment would contribute an initial $80 million to the project and up to $450 million if the long-term plans for "Real City" were achieved. A few months after negotiating this new deal Peter Corroon renegged again. The County had taken upon itself the responsibility of evaluating Real Salt Lake's "financial viability" and Pete decided the team needed to be viabler. He said, "no deal" to RSL.
The (expensive) investigation into Real Salt Lake's financial viability was a farce. If Real Salt Lake were to go under the County would have retained ownership of the land, which would have been made much more valuable with development surrounding the stadium. (Even the E-Center has contributed to the development of surrounding land.) The risk to Salt Lake County was always minimal. The one time Corroon was pressed on that fact he responded by saying the County was not in the business of real estate projection. They were, apparently, in the business of Real Salt Lake projection. I think Corroon and the County Council just liked seeing their names in the newspaper and faces on the news. As I'll point out the decision not to fund the stadium was in no way a smart one for Salt Lake County.
Dave Checketts was understandably exacerbated by what happened, but he too acted like a baby. He threatened to move the team within a year. And persistant rumours about St. Louis appeared in both Salt Lake and St. Louis media. If they moved, the team could even keep their RSL logo and monogram!
During all of these goings-on the press was following suit when it came to irresponsibility. The media never once disclosed the details of the deal, such as the fact that the county would own the land, and own the stadium itself after a certain amount of time. Finally, after two years of reporting about the stadium, and publishing op-ed pieces against the "public subsidy of private enterprise" Heather May and the Salt Lake Tribune noted (at the very end of the article) that the Newspaper Agency Corporation, parent company of the Tribune and Deseret News, had received a similar deal to build two of their buildings, one downtown and one in West Valley City. The article also details subsidies given to (Energy Slut) Larry H. Miller for two sports venues, this, again, after two years of printing letters to the editor that suggested RSL do it the way Larry Miller and the Jazz did when "he built the Delta Center with his own money." They were letters to the editor, not articles, but noone bothered to print facts. . . .
It seems there were public officials who realized this was a win win situation. When it looked like Real Salt Lake was really headed for St. Louis, Governer John Huntsman Jr., Rocky Anderson, and State Senate President Valentine came to the rescue. The new deal is exactly the same except it skips Salt Lake County. The State took the TRT money back from Salt Lake County. Real Salt Lake will build their Sandy stadium, Sandy City will kick in, but the ownership of the land will now be the State's, not the County's.
Corroon and the County Council knew this would happen. They knew the money they had received was earmarked for RSL, they knew the State would react. So, if the County doesn't get the tax money and doesn't get the land, how was this at all a responsible decision for the County? Essentially Pete Corroon and co. turned down free land. Well done.
In the end, they're all dumb. It should be a downtown stadium, but politicians (and soccer team owners) can't see past their own egos. And the "journalists" are too busy shaping public opinion to report anything.
Here's to RSL making the playoffs this year. If not I may have to write a post about head coach John Ellinger.
Friday, December 22, 2006
5... 4... 3... 2... Happy New Year
If you're in a Utah bar this year on New Year's Eve you'll have to drink your champagne before the ball drops.
All sales and consumption of alcohol must be completed before midnight on Sundays. As opposed to 1:00 am other days.
What makes Sundays different than any other day? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.) Should State law really be influenced by religious holdings? (That question should be more rhetorical than it is.)
All sales and consumption of alcohol must be completed before midnight on Sundays. As opposed to 1:00 am other days.
What makes Sundays different than any other day? (That's a rhetorical question, by the way.) Should State law really be influenced by religious holdings? (That question should be more rhetorical than it is.)
Thursday, December 21, 2006
It's Electric!
Did you know this car existed?
The GM EV1.
It doesn’t. Not anymore. I just saw the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car I won’t try to recap the information offered in the film, but I was shocked (no pun intended.) The GM EV1 was first offered to the public in 1996. It was only available for lease and only in California and Arizona. I was 14 in ’96, I knew about cars, but I didn’t know about this one. By 2000 when GM started crushing the EV1s I was 18 and definitely knew about cars. How come I’d never heard of any production-level electric car? I still don’t understand why they had to destroy all the cars, but you know, whatever.
Happily, there’s this one. . . .
It does 0-60 in about 4 seconds, has a top speed of 130 and can go 250 miles on a charge. That and it’s about twice as energy efficient as a Toyota Prius. Daaayum. It’s the Tesla Roadster. They’ve sold out for 2007 but you can get on the list for 2008. The base price is $92,000, and I’d recommend going with the optional hard-top for another $3500. If you live outside of Tesla’s service area it’s another $8000 bucks for your warranted service. (Although the electric motors are far less complex and far less likely to break down.) The best thing about these cars, besides the speed and efficiency, is they look bad-ass! (No offense to any Prius owners.)
I had always heard that you couldn’t get as much torque in an electric because of something to do with the explosivity of gasoline or some . . . hell I dunno. . . anyway turns out that’s all bullshit. You know how when you first accelerate in most cars it’s a little bit slow and then when you get the rpms up you start to get going? Apparently with the Tesla there’s none of that lag. According to their numbers this car is a hell of a lot more than just a pretty golf cart.
They take about three or four hours to charge, so road trips are out of the question. But 250 miles is more than anyone I know drives day to day, so you just have to plug it in at night. Tesla also says the batteries will perform for over 100,000 miles. (500 full charges.) That ain’t bad.
The car itself has zero emissions, it doesn’t even have a tailpipe. Though the power plant probably does pollute, even if you get your power from a coal-burning plant you’ll be polluting about half as much as the best hybrids.
Keep in mind that the Tesla Roadster is not mass-produced the same way a Camry, Civic, or even Porsche 911 is, if it were the price tag could easily go down. Indeed cars like this seem to be the way of the future, and GM and Ford seem to be going the way of the buffalo (check the financial news,) they certainly are determined to take as much money with them as possible though.
Now, if only I could get my hands on a hundred grand. . .
Angelos in America
This is kind of old news I guess, but to me it’s pretty damn pertinent.
With the recent (non)decision of the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear Weldon Angelos’ appeal the Utah resident has been damned to serve 55 years and one day in prison for dealing a little dope.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate, Angelos got about six for dealing the weed, and about 50 for possession. Of handguns.
Flashback to Paul Cassell’s courtroom November 2004.
It is Angelos’ first offense, the prosecution and defense both agree that Angelos should serve six and a half years for his crimes. Congress disagrees.
So “the court reluctantly concludes that it has no choice but to impose the 55 year sentence. While the sentence appears to be cruel, unjust, and irrational, in our system of separated powers Congress makes the final decisions as to appropriate criminal penalties.” *
Here is U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell in a statement given to the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives in March 2006.
“In United States v. Angelos, I had to sentence a twenty-four-year-old first offender who was a successful music executive with two young children. Because he was convicted of dealing marijuana and related offenses, both the government and the defense agreed that Mr. Angelos should serve about six-and-a-half years in prison. But there were three additional firearms offenses for which I also had to impose sentence. Two of those offenses occurred when Mr. Angelos carried a handgun to two $350 marijuana deals; the third when police found several additional handguns at his home when they executed a search warrant. For these three acts of possessing (not using or even displaying) these guns, the government insisted that Mr. Angelos should essentially spend the rest of his life in prison. Specifically, the government urged me to sentence Mr. Angelos to a prison term of no less than 61½ years – six years-and-a-half years for drug dealing followed by 55 years for three counts of possessing a firearm in connection with a drug offense. In support of its position, the government relied on a statute – 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) – which requires courts to impose a sentence of five years in prison the first time a drug dealer carries a gun and twenty-five years for each subsequent time. Under § 924(c), the three counts produced 55 years of additional punishment for carrying a firearm.”
Let me see if I can break this down. Congress says that if a dealer carries a gun in connection with a drug crime he (or she) gets five years tacked on to his sentence. Okay. If he does it again he gets 25 years tacked on. Whoa.
But wait, Angelos hadn’t been charged before. So on his first charge he’s getting the penalty for “subsequent offenses?” That’s like parking by in a red zone a couple times, not getting a ticket and then you go out to your car only to find it seized by the city. See they have evidence of those other times, they just waited to tell you. And how are the guns found at his house with the search warrant related to the drug crime? Sorry, I don't mean to rant.
So, 55 years because Congress doesn’t want to let “activist judges” judge. A Congress so hungry for power they forgot about separating it.
Weldon Angelos doesn’t get to see his kids play soccer, get married, have his grandkids. . . . I know I know, you do the crime you pay the time, but in a civil society the time and crime match up.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. This is the same Congress that just made it okay for the President to call anyone he wants an “enemy combatant” hold them without a charge, torture them, make fun of the music in their i-pod, pretty much anything.
At least Angelos has been told why he’s imprisoned, but it still doesn't make any sense. Not after the first six years anyway.
With the recent (non)decision of the U.S. Supreme Court refusing to hear Weldon Angelos’ appeal the Utah resident has been damned to serve 55 years and one day in prison for dealing a little dope.
Actually, that’s not quite accurate, Angelos got about six for dealing the weed, and about 50 for possession. Of handguns.
Flashback to Paul Cassell’s courtroom November 2004.
It is Angelos’ first offense, the prosecution and defense both agree that Angelos should serve six and a half years for his crimes. Congress disagrees.
So “the court reluctantly concludes that it has no choice but to impose the 55 year sentence. While the sentence appears to be cruel, unjust, and irrational, in our system of separated powers Congress makes the final decisions as to appropriate criminal penalties.” *
Here is U.S. District Court Judge Paul Cassell in a statement given to the Judiciary Committee in the House of Representatives in March 2006.
“In United States v. Angelos, I had to sentence a twenty-four-year-old first offender who was a successful music executive with two young children. Because he was convicted of dealing marijuana and related offenses, both the government and the defense agreed that Mr. Angelos should serve about six-and-a-half years in prison. But there were three additional firearms offenses for which I also had to impose sentence. Two of those offenses occurred when Mr. Angelos carried a handgun to two $350 marijuana deals; the third when police found several additional handguns at his home when they executed a search warrant. For these three acts of possessing (not using or even displaying) these guns, the government insisted that Mr. Angelos should essentially spend the rest of his life in prison. Specifically, the government urged me to sentence Mr. Angelos to a prison term of no less than 61½ years – six years-and-a-half years for drug dealing followed by 55 years for three counts of possessing a firearm in connection with a drug offense. In support of its position, the government relied on a statute – 18 U.S.C. § 924(c) – which requires courts to impose a sentence of five years in prison the first time a drug dealer carries a gun and twenty-five years for each subsequent time. Under § 924(c), the three counts produced 55 years of additional punishment for carrying a firearm.”
Let me see if I can break this down. Congress says that if a dealer carries a gun in connection with a drug crime he (or she) gets five years tacked on to his sentence. Okay. If he does it again he gets 25 years tacked on. Whoa.
But wait, Angelos hadn’t been charged before. So on his first charge he’s getting the penalty for “subsequent offenses?” That’s like parking by in a red zone a couple times, not getting a ticket and then you go out to your car only to find it seized by the city. See they have evidence of those other times, they just waited to tell you. And how are the guns found at his house with the search warrant related to the drug crime? Sorry, I don't mean to rant.
So, 55 years because Congress doesn’t want to let “activist judges” judge. A Congress so hungry for power they forgot about separating it.
Weldon Angelos doesn’t get to see his kids play soccer, get married, have his grandkids. . . . I know I know, you do the crime you pay the time, but in a civil society the time and crime match up.
Then again, maybe I shouldn’t be so surprised. This is the same Congress that just made it okay for the President to call anyone he wants an “enemy combatant” hold them without a charge, torture them, make fun of the music in their i-pod, pretty much anything.
At least Angelos has been told why he’s imprisoned, but it still doesn't make any sense. Not after the first six years anyway.
Friday, December 8, 2006
Genesis
I decided to create this blog after searching the net for something like it and coming up empty. Which is not to say there aren't other blogs out there, I just couldn't find them. I'm not sure anyone will find this one either, or that I'll even tell anyone about it - okay, I'll probably tell people about it.
Who knows what this will turn into over time, (an empty blog site with three postings each over a month apart?) but for now its purpose will be to give me a place to shoot my somewhat liberal mouth off in a very conservative state. I won't claim to be right all the time, nor do I have any delusions of being the most informed or qualified to discuss the issues I'll raise here. But, it's my damn blog. And what is a blog if not an act of self-indulgence?
Who knows what this will turn into over time, (an empty blog site with three postings each over a month apart?) but for now its purpose will be to give me a place to shoot my somewhat liberal mouth off in a very conservative state. I won't claim to be right all the time, nor do I have any delusions of being the most informed or qualified to discuss the issues I'll raise here. But, it's my damn blog. And what is a blog if not an act of self-indulgence?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)