Sen.Blutarsky

It would be best simply not to spend it at all. There is a midwestern saying that comes to mind, "pigs get fed, hogs get slaughtered." Some Democrat and Republican members of Congress are long overdue for their appointments with the political abbatoir. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Well it is Bush’s fault that he chooses not to use the bully pulpit and permanently put an end to nonsense like this humongous piece of bacon, I guess he’s just taking his cue from Dear Old Dad: The Bridge to Nowhere: A National Embarrassment by Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D. October 20, 2005 WebMemo #889 Today, Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK) will offer an amendment to the Senate’s appropriation bill to transfer the $223 million that Congress had previously approved for a bridge in Ketchikan, Alaska, to fund reconstruction of a hurricane-damaged bridge in Louisiana. Dubbed the “Bridge to Nowhere,” the bridge in Alaska would connect the town of Ketchikan (population 8,900) with its airport on the Island of Gravina (population 50) at a cost to federal taxpayers of $320 million, by way of three separate earmarks in the recent highway bill. At present, a ferry service runs to the island, but some in the town complain about its wait (15 to 30 minutes) and fee ($6 per car). The Gravina Island bridge project is an embarrassment to the people of Alaska and the U.S. Congress. Fiscally responsible Members of Congress should be eager to zero out its funding. The bridge has become an object of national ridicule and a symbol of the fiscal irresponsibility of many in Congress toward the money entrusted to them by the taxpayers. It has also become an embarrassment to the people of Alaska and to responsible members of Congress who now find themselves tarred by the same brush dipped in the muck of the highway bill. In response to this national humiliation, many in Alaska have vented their anger in the state’s newspapers, and the papers’ editors have also objected to the bridge on their editorial pages. In the Anchorage Daily News, Diane Mucha of Eagle River wrote, “Of course, Alaska should and, hopefully, will volunteer to reject the money for the bridges to nowhere and Congress will apply the money for the hurricane relief efforts.” David Raskin of Homer, Alaska, wrote, “Alaskans owe an apology to the people of New Orleans, to Alaska Native people and to the Nation for their selfish shortsightedness in sending these scoundrels to Washington and voting to keep them there.” In the Ketchikan News, Dave Person wrote, “Thinking about the immense disaster in the Gulf States, it occurred to me that the most effective thing that the residents of Ketchikan could do to help would be to return the money earmarked for our Gravina Bridge.” Back in Anchorage, Art Weiner wrote, “In a collective act of passion, the people of Alaska should request that the funds appropriated for our bridges be used for infrastructure reconstruction in the hurricane-affected area.” Despite the willingness of many in Alaska to give back the bridge to pay for disaster relief, Alaska’s congressional delegation has dug in its heels, and many of the delegation’s colleagues, including all of congressional leadership, support its resistance. If Alaska loses some of its pork, they fear, so might they. In opposing Senator Coburn’s amendment to defund the bridge, one prominent Senator told a closed-door meeting of conservatives that the plan was simply impractical. Many of the earmarks, he claimed, are counted towards a state’s equity bonus and thus are part of the state-by-state allocation formula. Defunding the bridge, he said, would direct at most $75 million to Louisiana, with the remaining $148 million returning to Alaska as money the state could use at its discretion for road projects. Never mind that the Senator seems to view $75 million in taxpayers’ dollars as a sum of little consequence; what the Senator sees as a problem in fact would be a considerable benefit to Alaska. Assuming the Senator’s numbers are right, Alaska’s Department of Transportation would gain $148 million in money it could spend on the state’s transportation priorities instead of a useless bridge that would serve a tiny fraction of the state’s citizens. Perhaps recognizing that the citizens of Alaska, including many in Ketchikan, do not value the Gravina Island bridge project, its defenders have been forced to resort to threats. One House “Leadership staffer suggested that retribution could be levied for the removal of the project in a technical corrections bill or other measure,” BNA reported. This is the sort of challenge that fiscally responsible senators should relish and, through their votes, show the House leadership exactly what they think of this childish threat. Most importantly, pushing back would show the nation that their august institution of democracy still maintains the moral authority to be trusted with hard-earned tax dollars. Ronald D. Utt, Ph.D., is Herbert and Joyce Morgan Senior Research Fellow in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation. Source: http://www.heritage.org/Research/Budget/wm889.cfm Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Cheney must be scheduled for another surgery. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I'm a lawyer when I'm not busy legislating. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

How do you know my hygenic and dietary practices so well? You were guessing Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Sure, but I'd rather discuss more interesting topics like balloon jumps, boogies, babes and beers Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I say bully for us denizens of the Great Lakes states. Great Lakes water pact signed Tue Dec 13, 2005 5:42 PM ET Reuters By Andrew Stern CHICAGO (Reuters) - U.S. and Canadian governors signed a pact on Tuesday blocking exports of water from the Great Lakes and calling for efforts to preserve the world's largest body of fresh water, officials said. The pact reached by eight U.S. states and two Canadian provinces that border the five Great Lakes introduced strict standards for water usage, sinking tentative proposals to ship water to thirsty regions such as the U.S. Southwest or Middle East. "It's the first time we've seen all eight Great Lakes governors and two Canadian provinces agree on standards," said Cameron Davis of the environmental group Alliance for the Great Lakes. "This region has been a profligate water waster, and we now have a set of standards on the books that helps get ourselves on the same page on how to conserve this resource." To come into effect, the pact must be approved by the legislatures of each Great Lakes state -- Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota -- and the U.S. Congress. Similarly, signatories from Quebec and Ontario need legislative approval. All are expected to do so. "The new agreements will improve and protect the health and economic vitality of the Great Lakes region and allow future generations to share the same benefits," said Ohio's Republican Gov. Bob Taft, head of the Council of Great Lakes Governors. The agreement, announced in Milwaukee, includes strict rules that will make it difficult for additional communities on the edges of the Great Lakes watershed to use its water. Previously, governors could arbitrarily decide to include or exclude communities seeking water from the lakes. The pact also aims to prohibit commercial exports of lake water -- restricting withdrawals to 5-gallon (20-liter) receptacles. The allowance was a bow to regional brewers and other interests needing limited amounts of water, Davis said. Existing lake water users outside the watershed, such as several Chicago suburbs, were allowed to maintain their supply. But new users must meet requirements that they return treated effluent back to the lakes, minus whatever is consumed. The city of Chicago, a consumer of hundreds of billions of gallons of Lake Michigan water annually, is governed by a separate consent decree in effect since the flow of the Chicago River was reversed in 1900 to drain from the lake via locks. More than 35 million people rely on the Great Lakes for drinking water and the lakes are able to replace only 1 percent of their contents annually. The Great Lakes contain 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water -- only the polar ice caps and Lake Baikal in Siberia contain more. On Monday, a task force created by President George W. Bush presented its final plan to clean up the Great Lakes -- a multibillion-dollar strategy for which funding is in doubt. Source: http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2005-12-13T224223Z_01_SPI868679_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-GREATLAKES.xml Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I disagree. Were he to have existed in real life and survived his final encounter with Jody Foster the plausible risk of a state having wrongly sentenced to death the Buffalo Bill character in the movie Silence of the Lambs and then executing him by mistake would be zero. BB kept a bloody pit in the basement of a home he owned, recorded his crimes on videotape, preserved and toyed with his victims’ skins leaving DNA traces, raised exotic moths which were found in all his victim’s mouths, left a surviving witness alive who could identify him and fired shots at Agent Starling presumably from a gun that was registered to him and bore his fingerprints. Certainly it’s possible the feds could have framed BB because they needed a fallguy but, in view of the massive amount of interleaved direct evidence in the case, plus the fact that Foster would never accept to play a character who was party to such treachery, it just isn’t plausible BB was innocent of the crimes he presumably would have been convicted of had he surrendered to Foster. This hypothetical case would pass your test I believe, and real life occasionally furnishes comparable examples where the death penalty would be deserved and could be applied with zero plausible risk of executing an innocent person. Unfortunately real life also provides us with stories of guys like Rolando Cruz, who was framed by the government and narrowly escaped being killed by a state’s capital punishment machinery despite his innocence: http://www.law.northwestern.edu/depts/clinic/wrongful/exonerations/cruz.htm. My position is that I’m not willing to kill a single Cruz in trade for any number of guilty BB’s in real life and there’s nothing insincere or inconsistent about that and my openess to reinstituting capital punishment should conditions warrant. What harm would obtain from a pause? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Of all the regular posters to this forum you are the one whose views I most often agree with, perhaps it’s because I detect that we are both practical midwesterners who aren’t afraid to roll up our sleeves and get a little earth under our fingernails if that’s what a job calls for. In respect of this thread I also agree with most of what you have posted, including the conclusion that the capital punishment machinery in our country is broken and requires attention. Our views diverge, however, on accepting an “error band” which would allow an innocent person to be executed under plausible circumstances. Already in Illinois we have removed a significant number of persons from our death row and released them into our general population because compelling evidence surfaced well after their sentencing which established beyond all reasonable doubt these people did not commit the crimes for which they had been condemned to die. If and when the day arrives when there is no plausible error band for administering capital punishment in Illinois then I will be in favor of reinstituting application of the death penalty here. Until then however I will continue to support the moratorium on capital punishment and to urge those who work in my state’s government to reform our system of criminal justice on a number of levels even if this means that I have to get a little dirt under my fingernails. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Oh please don’t bring back the Dean one. Please! Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Which would have resulted in the state-sanctioned killing of an innocent person. I do insist that the number of persons who are executed but innocent of the capital crimes for which they are convicted *must* be zero or else we should suspend capital punishment until such time as we are able to guarantee zero executions of innocents. I applaud the former governor of my state, George Ryan, for placing a moratorium on capital punishment here unless and until we are certain there will be no innocent people executed. Do you support a moratorium on the death penatly or do accept that states may execute innocent people? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

It's your model rocket engines which concern those of us in government the most Kallend, we couldn't care less if you get your Newtonian kicks with namby pamby bullet-firing guns. My office believes that we should implement a mandatory FRUMP* identification card program with background screening for any citizen who desires to own a model rocket engine sized larger than 'A' and these should be issued on a need-to-own basis. The risks such unnecessary contrivances pose to our way of life when they fall into the hands of juvenile misfits, including by criminally incentivizing children away from Creationism and towards hard science, outweigh the potential benefits assuming there are some in the first place * Federal Rocketry Upgraded Motor Permit Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Capote probably, I thought it was an insightful, flawlessly-executed character study. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

A quarter doesn't get you any more what it used to buy you in 1941. I need serious plastic, pops (

I tend to side with Kallend on this one. I mean after all he was teaching school back then and so he ought to know Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I thought the TookieMonster didn't want witnesses to his execution who aren't public officials. You don't think the good reverend would attend anyway only to appear on the airwaves afterwards, do you? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Terminator has denied Tookie's request for clemency. Bluto

I say call 'em as you see 'em. No one should fault you for that. I sure don't. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

How is my post inconsistent with the need to have been involved in WWII? Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Thereby helping cause to be created for the first time in this country’s history a vast military-industrial complex which thrives here today still. Perhaps we’ll devise some interesting ways to apply what it produces … Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Yeah, the Clinton [sn]ow job was a big problem. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

What you absolutely do NOT do is try and shoulder the burden alone. I would suggest that you contact the American Cancer Society and similar groups immediately. They have programs and networks which really help people in your position every day. (I called on the American Brain Tumor Association and similar groups when my sister was first diagnosed with her brain tumor.) Hang in there dearie. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

I do not agree with many of your facts and conclusions. Certainly you are entitled to an opinion and I will leave you with that. Cheers. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

You want to bet the farm that Iran will operate according to the rational actor model in the event that country acquires atomic weapons? To date no theocracy has possessed atomic weapons and the secularists with their fingers on the trigger have comported themselves as rational actors. Fundamentalist religion injects an element of irrationality into the decision making process for all parties concerned. Perhaps President Ahmadinejad is just like any other politician who spouts what ever rhetoric intended for domestic consumption will help maintain his base of political support. On the other hand maybe he and enough of the ruling Imams, or a radical splinter group, actually believe that Allah’s day of judgment is at hand (God will have given Iran, the Islamic vanguard, the mightiest sword ever wielded by the hand of Man, right?) and Iran will launch a lightening strike against its arch enemy Israel with Iran’s atomic arsenal thereby permanently resolving the Israeli question. It doesn’t matter which scenario is probable if you’re the Israelis and your intell strongly urges that preparations are being made by Iran to lauch multiple missiles of a nuclear-capable type. You don’t wait to see whether the missiles are conventional, atomic or for testing purposes, no, you launch your own preemptive nuclear strike on Iran because you cannot withstand absorbing an atomic attack and so you must respond on the basis of the worst case scenario. If Iran is permitted to build aircraft or missile deployable atomic weapons this condition will decidely NOT exert a “moderating influence” on world affairs and atomic weapons will MORE likely be used than is the case were Iran not to get its hands on them. Further consider the prospect that Iran might someday choose to arm terrorists with radioactive components for dirty bombs or with a small, highly portable atomic device similar to the U.S. “Davy Crockett” in scale (unsophisticated design, robust, smaller than a duffle bag, weighs less than 100 lbs). That additional threat also will have to be addressed by assuming the worst case scenario, say, by shooting suspicious individuals who are observed toting around unwieldy luggage. I sincerely hope that Iran does not acquire atomic weapons until and unless the country abandons theocracy and achieves a stable track record as a secular state at peace with Israel. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!

Excellent news! Following a general trial we can enjoy the distinct pleasure of recloning and executing the fucking bastard ad infinitum. I applaud such use of my tax dollars. Blutarsky 2008. No Prisoners!