Blog 2.1

BBC News is the only major news source reporting on this story (and even there it is buried within the website). Why isn’t anyone else reporting on this? It seems like a significant, positive turn of events.

I’m finalizing a lease in Overland Park that will begin in June, and every day that goes by makes me more eager to leave Kansas City for good. As I was filling out my intent to vacate notice for my current apartment I paid special attention to the line “Reason(s) for moving.” Included in my list were the long commute, frequent fire alarms, inconvenient parking, crime, noise, city taxes, panhandlers, constant construction, dull downtown nightlife, no convenient grocery stores…” I had to add a few lines before I completed my list. This morning I discovered one more reason to hate Kansas City: quotas.

I’ve always been quick to defend the practices of police in general. My confidence in city cops has never been too high, however. The low expectations started in high school back in Palmyra. One of my best friends was ticketed (and eventually had a warrant issued for his arrest) for parking in a no-parking zone to man the crosswalk by the middle school and help grade school kids cross the street. The Key Club had done this every day for years, and each time the volunteers parked in the same spot. On that day, however, the city police officer decided to ignore this fact and issue the citation without hesitation. Meanwhile, this same police force was unable to anticipate regular vandalization the night before football games against rival schools. Instead, they spent their time ticketing (and pursuing the arrest of) volunteer workers out of the blue.

So what happened to me this morning? As far as I can tell, I’ve been fined for driving in the right lane. Every day I drive the Southwest Trafficway on my way to work. Every day traffic on this six-lane, major north-south thoroughfare moves along at about 50 miles per hour during the morning commute despite the posted speed limit of 35. So today, as I was moving along with traffic, I was waved over to a side street on my way to work and issued a speeding ticket for driving 13 miles per hour over the speed limit. So was someone a few cars in front of me, and so were people a few cars behind me… for driving with traffic… during rush hour. What did I learn from this experience? I learned that if I want to avoid being chosen to pay a fine to the city and have points put on my license, then I need to start driving in the left lane.

I’d always found it hard to believe people’s claims that the KCPD has quotas to fill when it comes to citations. Considering what happened today, added to the fact that it is nearly the end of the month, makes me wonder. Are speed traps like the one I was caught in today about safety or revenue? Considering the state of crime in Kansas City, it’s hard to believe the city is really that serious about safety. Where was the KCPD last weekend, when my coworker was jumped and beaten by three men while walking with his girlfriend in Westport? Considering the rate at which the city is backing failing developers’ projects with taxes paid by KC residents, it’s easy to see why they might be more concerned with revenue. It takes a lot of cash to hand out millions of dollars like a drunken lottery winner to whomever shows up for it.

So thanks, Kansas City. You’ve failed yet again to keep a young, educated person within the city limits. It takes a very special kind of person to pay higher taxes to live in an area with more crime and fewer amenities. It also takes a special kind of person to be paid to improve the lives of the people they share a city with and yet manage to achieve the opposite. I believe they’re both called idiots.

Brain Terminal has a snarky post today about the emerging nanny state in the United States. I’ll be investing in bubble wrap companies.

A major media outlet is telling the other side of the story when it comes to the energy debate in our country - Newsweek no less. One of my favorite lines:

“Our largest foreign source of oil is turbulent Canada. Our second largest is Mexico, which is experiencing turbulence because of the soaring cost of tortillas. They are made from corn, which is … well, read on.”

The topic of energy in our country is quickly becoming too frustrating to bother with. There is no easy answer, but the debate (or “shouting match” as you might want to call it now) is becoming so polarized and devoid of real content that it is beginning to resemble Congress. The politics of energy have skewed the facts of the matter so dramatically that no one seems to know what is going on any more. Can anyone provide proof that ethanol is a viable net energy-saver compared to petroleum? That the effect of using corn for energy won’t have a significant and detrimental effect on global food needs? (Ask Mexico about that one.) That the gross neglect of other biofuel products is not being ignored because the corn lobby is showering money on Washington? (Google “algae biomass” to see what your tax money should be funding.) Or how about that even if someone were to come up with a wonderful new energy solution, would they be silenced by both the oil and agriculture industries?

I’m tired of walking around in a maze of misinformation. Does anyone know where the exit is?

Wednesday’s post regarding a controversial bill in the US Senate got me more comments this week than I usually get in a month. Today there is more news about this bill: the bit requiring “grassroots” political bloggers to register and report to Congress as lobbyists has been struck from the bill.

Worth noting, however, is that I discovered more detail about how the bill defines “grassroots lobbying firm”:

(19) GRASSROOTS LOBBYING FIRM- The term `grassroots lobbying firm’ means a person or entity that–

(A) is retained by 1 or more clients to engage in paid efforts to stimulate grassroots lobbying on behalf of such clients; and

(B) receives income of, or spends or agrees to spend, an aggregate of $25,000 or more for such efforts in any quarterly period.’.

As such, it appears the bill was targeted at such things as radio talk shows funded by advertisers (thus the Republican opposition) and other “astroturfers” (think fake grassroots). It would not, however, target media funded by contributors like MoveOn.org.

Would this section of the bill been a positive element if it had been retained? I still think it’s hard to say. Personally, if the bill was supposed to target “astroturfing” then I think it should have done so more clearly. As it was written, however, the bill seemed to target the activities of one party and not the other (which explains the partisan split on the vote).

For anyone from Missouri who’s counting, Kit Bond (and the rest of the Senate Republicans) voted to remove the controversial section of the bill. Newly elected Senator Claire McCaskill (and all but seven Democrats) voted to keep the section in.