William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-3-15
Dark Money Excuse For Power Grab
Jon Cassidy at Watchdog.org has an article explaining how state laws seeking to expose the rich donors of political causes are being used to stifle local activism.
He cites as an example a community group in Colorado that was sued under such a “dark money” law for opposing the annexation of a neighborhood by a larger community.
The community group consisted of about a half-dozen neighbors and spent about $1,000 for yard signs and literature.
Karen Sampson, the woman who organized the group, fought the suit and won with a federal court declaring the law unconstitutional. It took four years, though, and the Democrat-controlled Colorado legislature has failed to bring the law into line with the court ruling.
“I’m ashamed to say, that if I’d known we would be sued, and now knowing how absurd Colorado’s campaign finance laws are, I would think twice about getting involved in an issue ballot,” Ms. Sampson said.
The Colorado law requires any two people who spent $200, or 30 percent of their budget, on an issue appearing on a ballot had to register as a political committee and comply with the complex web of regulations meant for political pros, Cassidy says.
It’s just one more thing to keep your eye and to fight if you love freedom.
Dark Money Excuse For Power Grab
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-2-14
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-2-14
You can associate Daniel Webster with the Devil, but Jenny Lind? Believe it! The Swedish Nightingale and The Great Orator once sang a duet that lasted for five encores.
France Hates Jews
Reader Tom C sent us this link to a FrontPageMag.com article regarding France’s strange Dec. 30 vote in support of a United Nation’s resolution calling for Israel to withdraw to its indefensible 1967 borders.
The resolution did not get the required nine votes and hence failed, sparing the U.S. from having to cast a veto.
Still, there was no reason for the French to have voted aye. Note they voted aye. They didn’t simply abstain as five other nations did.
The article notes Jews are fleeing the country in droves and that France had antisemitism even when it didn’t have a significant Muslim population.
France Hates Jews
Tyler Vigen Correlation Charts
It has been discovered that there is almost a perfect correlation (.992558) of per capita consumption of margarine in the United States with the divorce rate in Maine.
And did you know that the correlation between the number of people who died by becoming tangled in their bedsheets with revenue generated by American skiing facilities is .969?
Pretty spooky.
And let us not even try to consider the strange connection between swimming-pool drowning deaths and Nicolas Cage movies.
Kudos to Tyler Vigen for the noble effort to show that correlation does not equal causation.
For those who love conspiracy theories, and especially debunking them, TylerVigen.com is here.
Tyler Vigen Correlation Charts
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-1-15
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 1-1-15
It was the Babylonians that celebrated the first New Year. That was 4,000 years ago.
Good New Year’s News
Matthew Brouillette of Commonwealth Foundation informs us that for the first time in seven years new charter school applications — there are 40 of them — are under review in Philadelphia.
This gives a bit of hope to those poor kids stuck on waiting lists.
He notes that in October, legislation was passed in October allowing thousands of more kids to attend a school of their parents choice.
You think school choice is bad thing? Then just imagine if you had to use the supermarket/electrician/lawyer/doctor the government picked for you.
School choice is a good thing just as being able to choose your supermarket its.
Brouillette also tells us some not-so-good New Year’s news. Seven Pennsylvania government union PACs have shoveled $7.6 million to candidates in 2013-14. This is an increase of 53 percent in just two years.
Brouillette notes that this money comes from dues collected at taxpayer expense as per a corrupt law.
Good New Year’s News
Turnpike Tolls Rise, Happy New Year
Happy New Year. Pennsylvania Turnpike tolls are going to rise 5 percent for all customers on Sunday, Jan. 4.
Obviously one needs money to maintain a transportation infrastructure.
Just as obviously a lot of the money — maybe even most — collected by the federal government and Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in the guise of doing such is not.
High salaries for bureaucrats and inflated costs for construction should not be considered part of maintaining an infrastructure.
They should be considered corruption. Our lives would be richer and freer with less corruption.
End things like prevailing wage, which inflate the cost of public construction by about 20 percent.
Kill the scandal-ridden Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission and move its responsibilities to the slightly less scandal-ridden PennDOT.
For that matter, kill the turnpike system altogether. Make the roads freeways. Traffic bottlenecks are removed, salaries for toll-collectors disappear as does the cost of maintaining toll booths or EZ Pass lanes, and we no longer have to worry about how the revenue is going to be collected when adding ingresses and egresses. This means more ingresses and, especially, egresses which means much greater transportation efficiency.
Hat tip, Bob Guzzardi.
Turnpike Tolls Rise, Happy New Year
Physician Sentence Riddle Answer et al
In each blank in the following you have to place the same letters in the same order to make a sentence that is both grammatical and sensible:
The ______ physician was ______ to operate because he had _____ .
The answer is: The notable surgeon was not able to operate because he had no table.
Physician Sentence Riddle Answer
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-31-14
William Lawrence Sr Omnibit 12-31-14
Auld Lang Syne in English literally means “old long since”.