Less is More When it Comes to Legislating

The "Paige Postulate" says that the longer a legislature meets, the worse off that state will be, fiscally, economically and by almost every freedom-oriented measure or metric. Why? Because the more unnecessary legislating there is, the bigger mess of things legislators make.

There isn't a "Freedom Index" done for states, the way some think tanks do it for countries, as far as I know, but if there were such a ranking, I'm betting that states with short, part-time legislatures would rank far better than those with longer sessions or full-time legislatures, thereby proving the "Paige Postulate" correct.

Wyoming's 2011 legislative session is already closed, amazingly. All the better for Wyoming. Such short sessions are one major reason why the cowboy state isn't the fiscal and economic basket case that so many states are.

Carpe Diem

I’ve seen a lot of city council members accused of doing too little. I must be the first in history accused of doing too much. It’s a criticism I can live with.

John Hazlehurst seems to want my service on council to be as unmemorable as his was, but given that I was appointed to a truncated term (18 months), and given that those who appointed me knew full well that I would shake things up, and given the number of important issues that are coming to a head in the city, I didn’t even consider the possibility of running out the clock.

If I wasn’t having an impact, or gaining some measure of colleague support, I might agree with John’s grandfatherly advice. But on a number of issues, I think I’ve been able to get helpful and interesting things done. And I couldn’t have done this without the support (some grudging, to be sure) of colleagues, showing that I’m not the lone wolf John suggests.

A majority of my colleagues supported city partnership efforts – an idea I first proposed during the budget crisis of last year. Community centers, pools and a number of other city amenities scheduled to be axed when I came aboard are open today as a result of those efforts. A majority on council also backed creation of the City Committee, at my urging. It’s been quietly providing City Council and other city leaders with some very enlightening briefings on the city’s big picture budget outlook, and I’m confident it will play a larger role going forward. Also at my urging, the interim city manager is in the process of creating an Optimization Committee, which will help the city explore outsourcing opportunities and other innovations. That, too, has buy-in from colleagues.

A majority on council seems on the verge of approving some reasonable regulations for the medical marijuana industry, based on a comprehensive ordinance drafted by a task force I chaired along with Tom Gallagher. A majority backed my proposal to conduct the first-ever performance audits of the EDC and other recipients of public funds, putting some teeth behind the words “accountability” and “transparency.” A majority supported my proposal to explore passenger screening alternatives at Colorado Springs Airport. And I believe a majority doesn’t really give a hoot what the Planning Commission says about marijuana dispensary setback rules, even if they won’t say so, as I did.

I’ve more quietly shaped or influenced a lot of other decisions made by this council in the year I’ve served, even if it’s gone unreported, unnoticed and unheralded in some circles. And I’ve tried to be responsive to more day-to-day constituent issues, whether it’s helping Westside merchants confronting the homeless situation or helping someone maneuver through city red tape. I normally don’t go around bragging about any of this, but since my accomplishments on council have been called into question, I thought it was important to correct the record.

Not all my initiatives or ideas are warmly embraced by colleagues, to be sure. Few had any interest in trimming back the just-approved 2011 budget, for instance, in an effort to not spend every dollar coming in. Few (except Jan Martin) seem to have any real interest in improving the governance model of Colorado Springs Utilities, by creating a more professional and independent board (though that issue isn’t dead yet). And none except Tom Gallagher would join me in the dunk tank at the community center fundraiser.

I’m not sure how this stacks up against Hazlehurst’s accomplishments. I asked around but no one remembers what those were. It’s a challenging time for Colorado Springs. A lot of issues are coming to a head. Given the vacuum of leadership and lack of creative thinking that exists at some levels, there are plenty of opportunities to get involved. I never imagined I would stand accused of getting too involved.

I’ve stepped on a few toes and bruised a few egos along the way – it’s hard to get anything done around here if you’re afraid to do that. But I think I’ve also gained supporters, judging from the positive feedback I receive every day. I’ve not done too badly for someone who was billed, coming in, as too “radical” to work with others or get anything acomplished. And I’ve still got five months before my term expires.

I plan to finish strong.

The Washington Post's Poop Scoop

Washington Posties finally got on the Arlington National Cemetery scandal today, playing it as a scoop, even though it had been unfolding for several decades right beneath their noses, with nary a word. Other publications began writing about a chronic pattern of mismanagement at the storied facility about a year ago, but one intrepid reporter had the real scoop back in 1998, when he was writing for The Washington Times.

That nothing was done about problems that dated back 20 years, and that were known about, documented and reported on more than 12 years ago, is the scandal within the scandal. And it shows just how impossible it is to really change the way the federal bureaucracy works -- or doesn't work, as the case may be.

That The Post didn't pick up on the story for 20 years, when it was occurring in the paper's backyard, shows how inured the city's self-styled watchdogs can be to the chronic bureaucratic bumbling that swirls all around them, like a cesspool. That's the other scandal within the scandal.

Arlington's "Gravegate" Scandal Could Have Been Averted

Watching Washington for any significant length of time is bound to evoke feelings of deja vu. Not only do the political debates run in monotonous cycles, creating a sense of "haven't we done this before," but reports of federal malfeasance resurface with depressing regularity, showing how little really changes in Washington despite repeated calls for reform.

I had that deja vu feeling all over again last week, when reading stories and commentary about the disgraceful situation at Arlington National Cemetery, some of the most hallowed ground under federal management. They eerily echo a piece I wrote back in 1998 -- more than a dozen years ago -- for Insight Magazine, highlighting racial tensions and management problems at Arlington.

Really stunning is that the more recent revelations and critiques focus on cemetery Superintendent John Metzler, who has just been reprimanded and demoted over mixups involving graves. But Metzler was in charge at Arlington back in 1998, when I was blowing the whistle -- meaning that he's kept his job despite a long and documented history of management problems at the cemetery. And the problems predated my piece by years.

Here's a snippet of what I wrote back then:

"Behind its tidy white rows of headstones, impeccably manicured spaces and outward tranquility, Arlington, or ANC, is the site of bureaucratic bickering, mismanagement, morale problems and racial tensions, according to Army inspector general "climate assessments" conducted last year. "The atmosphere of turmoil, distrust, mismanagement and poor employee morale has continued [from the early 1990s] to the present," according to a Freedom of Information Act-exempt summary of the reports. "There is an overwhelming sense of frustration among employees and the senior leadership at ANC."

Fairly or not, the memo lays much of the blame for ANC's morale and management malaise on the "autocratic management style" of cemetery superintendent John Metzler, and suggests that little improvement is expected during his tenure. "There is no indication that the superintendent will ever change," the memo states, "and employees have lost confidence in his leadership ability."

It was long ago known that Metzler was a major screw-up, who shouldn't have been entrusted with managing this sacred ground, much less with managing a McDonald's. Yet he somehow kept his job, up to the present day, and all he's receiving for years of "autocratic" incompetence is a slap on the wrist. Metzler will be allowed to retire with dignity on July 2. He should have been fired years ago.

A reprimand posted Friday chastises Metzler for his "dysfunctional relationship" with deputy Thurman Higginbotham, who shares some of the blame for gravegate. But that dysfunctional relationship had been a problem for more than a decade. Higginbotham was on staff, and feuding with Metzler, back when I wrote about the cemetery:

"Group-sensing sessions" conducted at the cemetery last year found that a communication breakdown had occurred between ANC employees and management, and additional tensions exist between Metzler and his deputy, Thurman Higgenbotham. The (inspector general) bemoaned the lack of "team leadership," "sharing and consideration of others" and "unified direction" resulting from the rifts. The IG also found that the "dissension and discord" between the top two leaders "has a significant impact on the overall efficiency of the day-to-day operations of ANC."

This, recall, was back in the late 1990s.

What a depressing testimony to the entrenched incompetence at the federal level. What an insult to the heroes who are buried and honored at Arlington. What a black mark on the Pentagon for not cleaning up the situation more than a decade ago, when these problems first came to light (with the helping hand from Yours Truly). The scandal within the scandal is that some of the more recent disgraces might have been prevented, had the early warning signs not been ignored.

Two Paiges May Be Too Much to Handle

I was booked to be on Fox's Neil Cavuto Show today, to talk about the budget situation in Colorado Springs and the creative ways we're responding to it. But I was "bumped" from the show to make room for another guest -- some loud-mouthed chick from Washington named Leslie Paige, who will be on (at 4:00 Eastern) to talk about an annual pork barrel report called "The Pig Book."

Damn those big sisters, always trying to upstage younger brothers! But maybe one Fox show just isn't big enough to hold two Paiges.

Tune in to see Leslie at 4:00 today.

What's happening way out here in "fly-over country" will just have to wait for another day.

The Village Idiot

The Wall Street Journal's editorial page keeps columnist Thomas Frank on board to serve as a sort of court jester: he's the liberal whose arguments are so stupid they make conservative arguments look brilliant. He's there as the village idiot, who makes every one else on the page look good in comparison.

Yesterday he delivered on both counts.

His piece bemoans the fact that the left has meekly surrendered the mantle of the freedom fighter to the right, even though, according to Frank, liberals, statists and collectivists are the true freedom fighters in this society. The founding fathers were wrong, he says; it's just not true that expansive government is a threat to freedom. For support, he cites no less an authority than the painter Norman Rockwell. His other authority is of course Franklin Delano Roosevelt, whose "Four Freedoms" established the predicate for the nanny state we live under today.

You'll want to read the whole piece, for the same reason you gawk at car wrecks. But here are the key passages:

"Any increase in the size or duties of government, the right tells us, necessarily subtracts from our freedom. Government is, by its very nature, a destroyer of liberties; the Obama administration, specifically, is promising to interfere with the economy and the health-care system so profoundly that Washington will soon have us all in chains.

"What we're going to end up with is higher taxes, bigger government and less freedom for the American people," House Republican Leader John Boehner said on Fox News in July. "We're going to have a real fight for how much freedom we're going to have left in America." . . .

. . . That our ancestors could ever have understood freedom as something greater than the absence of the state would probably strike protesters as inconceivable. But they did. You can see it in that famous Norman Rockwell Thanksgiving painting from 1943: "Freedom from Want," an illustration of one of Franklin Roosevelt's "Four Freedoms." Strange though it might sound, this is a form of freedom that pretty much requires government to get involved in the economy in order to "secure to every nation," as Roosevelt put it, "a healthy peacetime life for its inhabitants." The idea is still enshrined today in the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights" . . .

. . . Conservatives of the 1930s, led by an upper-crust outfit called the American Liberty League, certainly felt that way. "That Roosevelt was a dictator there was no doubt; but Liberty Leaguers were not quite sure what kind," wrote the historian George Wolfskill in "The Revolt of the Conservatives," a 1962 study of that organization. "Some thought he was a fascist, others believed him a socialist or Communist, while others, to be absolutely sure, said he was both."

Today, of course, we know that the right's tyranny-fears were nonsense. Most of Roosevelt's innovations have been the law of the land for 70 years now, and yet we are still a free society free enough, that is, to allow tens of thousands of protesters to gather on the National Mall and to broadcast their slogans and speeches to the world via C-SPAN.

Even such pits of statism as Britain and Canada remain free societies, generally speaking, despite having gone skipping blithely down the universal-health-care road to serfdom decades ago. For the sort of people who gathered on the Mall last weekend, however, I doubt that such observations would matter in the least. Their conception of freedom soars on by a force all its own, carried aloft on the wings of pure abstract reasoning: Government intervention equals tyranny. Liberalism is forever a form of despotism-in-waiting."

Most American "ancestors" who predate the 1930s did in fact define freedom, in part, as the "absence of the state," which is why American government was designed to be strictly limited in power. And I could fill this post with quotes, citations and evidence to back that up. But for leftists, like Frank, American history begins not at the founding, but in the Roosevelt era. That's as far back in American history as they dare delve, in search of rationales for the superstate.

I happen to believe Americans have become less free since the New Deal, if one defines freedom not just as having the right to march on Washington to protest ObamaCare (Frank's emasculated definition of "freedom"), but the freedom from dependency on government programs and largess, which tends over time to make one an indentured servant (if not a slave) of the state. It's our independence -- meaning independence from state interference and state coercion and co-option -- that's been eroded as the size, power, appetite and mission of the mega-state grows. There's no denying it's grown significantly since the 1930.

Construction of the mega-state has gone on under both Democrat and Republican regimes. What Obama is doing is the logical extension of the trajectory the country had been traveling for decades. But the changes until now were too incremental to stir more than minor rebellion. The accelerated pace of Barack Obama's Great Leap Forward -- his fevered rush to finish the edifice Roosevelt laid the foundations for -- has jarred many American awake to the trap into which they've sleepily wandered. And that, not racism or embittered partisanship, is at the root of the ObamaCare backlash and tea party movement.

Union Dues . . . and Don'ts

This news story, indicating that the United Auto Workers plan to go down with the ship, along with today's guest commentary in the Wall Street Journal, sent me rifling through the way back file for a column I wrote at The Colorado Springs Gazette, recounting my own youthful experiences as a card-carrying member of the UAW.

It predates the present crisis, but still stands up, I think, in terms of what it has to say about unions. And since there seems little point in re-writing what's already been written, I thought I would re-run the piece, with the reader's indulgence:

Motor City memories inform opinions on labor unions

October 16, 2005

In a former life I was a rivethead. A factory rat. A grease monkey. A card-carrying member of the United Auto Workers. My attitudes toward labor unions — attitudes that creep into my editorializing on the subject, no doubt — aren’t ivory tower, therefore, but informed by a combined two years on “the line” in Detroit while working my way through college.

I’ve been thinking more about those days lately, when I watch from a distance as the economy of my grungy hometown, the once mighty Motor City, coughs, sputters and stalls out, with no jumper cables in sight. The latest body blow is the bankruptcy of Michiganbased Delphi, the world’s biggest auto parts supplier. As part of restructuring, the company wants its 24,000 UAW workers — who earn $27 dollar an hour plus benefits — to take a pay cut.

Another Detroit icon, General Motors, which spun off Delphi as a separate entity in 1999, last week saw its stock value fall by 10 percent and credit rating reduced by Standard & Poors to BB-, to “junk” bond status in other words. Mounting losses and huge health care costs ($5.6 billion this year alone) have the company reeling.

The city’s epitaph has been written before. But Detroiters are a stubbornly optimistic lot, as they show each fall by predicting a winning season for the ne’er-do-well Lions. But the situation today looks as grim as it ever has. And unions have played a major part in that sad saga, like it or not.

Both companies are hoping to dig themselves out with the help of wage and benefit concessions from the UAW. But they shouldn’t count on it. American labor unions have a history of helping to kill the industries off which they sponge, showing less common sense than parasites in the natural world, which at least know enough not to suck the life out of the host. Symbiosis isn’t a concept unions seem to grasp, at least not until it’s too late to pull a crippled industry back from the brink.

A harsh assessment, perhaps, but one based on personal experience as a lunchbox-lugging member of the UAW. I worked at two different plants in Detroit, both of which were union shops, meaning that joining wasn’t optional. There were significant, and instructive, differences between the two.

Chevrolet Warren, where I spent a year working the second shift, was what might be called a “hard union” shop. Here the UAW, not hated “management,” seemed to run the show. The foreman was only nominally my boss; the real bosses seemed to be the full time union stewards, whose job seemed to be making sure no one was fired, punished for lack of productivity or worked very hard.

I started out as a suburban kid with a work ethic, so the foremen took advantage of it, putting me on the dirtiest and hardest jobs, while guys with more seniority pushed brooms, shuffled around and drank coffee. It wasn’t just because I was a low seniority “kid” that I got tapped for the jobs. Some of the lifers were saboteurs, who monkey-wrenched the machines when asked to produce.

When machines broke down we were sent home with pay. Many days I would clock in only to be paid and let go. Union rules meant I couldn’t be sent to work elsewhere in the plant. It happened once, but my union steward quickly had me taken off that job and sent home, with pay.

Absenteeism was rampant. Everyone knew doctors who would write an excuse for a fee. Within six months, the suburban kid with the work ethic learned the ropes enough to slip into slacker mode, like everybody else. We worked sometimes, but like highly paid sleepwalkers.

The story was different at the “soft union” shop, an independent stamping plant that did piece work for the Big Three. We were all paying UAW dues, but management ran the show, not the union stewards, and productivity was monitored and required. “Making your numbers” for the shift was expected, unless your press broke down. And when that happened, there were other presses waiting. It wasn’t slavery. But it met the definition of manual labor.

Safety systems were in place to keep appendages from being folded, spindled or mutilated when one of the two-story presses cycled inadvertently. But we cranked out a lot of bus bumpers and wheel wells, often at a reckless pace.

Two years on the line taught me a few things about unions. I saw firsthand how union attitudes and tactics, when taken to extreme, undermine productivity, accountability and the work ethic. I saw how unions coerce support for political causes. I saw how a cadre of union honchos, rather than working for a living, sponged off the union dues of those who did work. I saw that unions mirror and mimic the worst traits of the corporate interests they claim to stand against. I watched American heavy industries be shut down or off-shored, even as labor unions refused to give concessions that might have kept them competitive and alive.

This was only part of my education about unions. The disappearance of former Teamster boss Jimmy Hoffa from a restaurant near where I lived suggested the criminality and corruption percolating away behind the union facade. Later in my career, while working for Citizens Against Government Waste, the longshoreman’s union sent goons to intimidate people at a Capitol Hill press conference at which maritime subsidies were criticized. I had to laugh — my “Uncle” Johnny, a former prize fighter, was an enforcer for the seafarer’s union in Brooklyn

Unions today are different, but the same. With the country’s heavy industries and manufacturing base in sharp decline, most of the growth is in government employee and teachers unions. These are a god-send to a fading union movement, because they are virtually recession proof and well insulated against competition and market pressures. That’s changing somewhat in the realm of public education, thanks to a school choice movement aimed at injecting more competition and accountability into the system. But the union response is the same — to refuse to make concessions, to change, to take the steps that are necessary to keep “host” industries on the cutting edge.

Unions were a historical necessity. At one time, they performed a valuable role. But over time they have morphed into something that crushes productivity, accountability, creativity, innovation and individuality — all the qualities American workers need if the country is to remain an economic powerhouse.

Paige Plugs Paige

This news segment from the Today Show, dealing with the Freddie and Fannie scandal, would be worth watching even if Leslie Paige -- yep, that's my big sister -- wasn't dishing up the sound bites. But she definitely adds a certain something (though you could ratchet-up the indignation just a bit, Les). And she actually has street cred on this issue, since she and CAGW were blowing the whistle on Fannie and Freddie long before the house of cards came tumbling down.

Way to go, Leslie. Keep on nipping at their heels!

The segment also does a good job of highlighting the Clinton connection -- how soon the public seems to have forgotten how scummy and morally-compromised this gang was. And now they're back, infiltrating the Obama administration like an insidious and incurable virus.

Boston Palintologists Discover American Dinosaurs

Sarah Palin was a defender of property rights, and an opponent of zoning, during her tenure as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, much to the obvious disdain of Boston Globe reporter Sasha Issenberg, who turns this into another anti-Palin indictment in a story appearing Sunday. The piece is as revealing about the smug Eastern elitism of the author, and Globe editors, as it is about the governor.

The story has an anti-Palin, anti-property rights slant from beginning to end, but here's a key excerpt:

"Palin's property-rights agenda exploited a deep anger toward the expansion of local government, an attitude that had defined politics in the Matanuska Valley since its settlement 80 years earlier as a way station for gold miners heading north.

She used opposition to land-use restrictions to tap that vein of frontier libertarianism and a conspicuous display of her social views to connect with the new middle-class families who had suburbanized the valley in the 1980s. In doing so, Palin created a microcosm of the modern conservative coalition in Wasilla, exploiting a period of radical growth and progress while feeding off the resentment it created.

"That probably was the reason she was elected mayor," said David Chappel, who joined Palin as the only two of six council members to vote against the city plan and later became her deputy mayor.

As a vice presidential candidate, Palin has suggested that a similar attitude toward growth would prevail nationally if she were elected. "We will get out of the way of private-sector progress," Palin said last week at a Colorado rally. "It's the small business, the mom-and-pops, that are the cornerstone of America."

The municipality Palin repeatedly heralded as a classic "small town" in her convention speech has no discernible center and a Main Street in name only. To its critics, Wasilla has become a famously bad example of suburban growth even by the standards of Alaska, a place where city planners have long noted a dangerous combination of too much land and too few rules about how to build on it."

To a Bostonian, Wasilla's relatively free, open and unregimented ways seem as alien and incomprehensible as the planet Mars, judging from the following description, which oozes disapproval:

" . . Wasilla had few natural barriers to growth, and government did not add any hurdles. With no zoning or building code, a resident able to finance a house on his or her property could build without oversight. Despite the fact that the city sits in an earthquake zone with extreme weather conditions, Wasilla enforced no standards on building materials, methods, or dimensions - and no construction documents needed to be filed at city hall.

In return, government was truly hands-off: Most residents lived on gravel roads and off their own septic tanks. They paid no sales tax. State troopers were the only police presence. There was no trash collection and the only firefighters were volunteers.

In the mid-1980s, a borough manager who proposed a zoning plan was chased out of office after being burned in effigy. "The reaction was so vehement, and so widespread, that politicians were loath to propose any land-use planning that had any teeth to it," said Richard Deuser, a former Wasilla city attorney.

When Wal-Mart expressed interest in building a store in the Wasilla area, the company faced few restrictions. Residents, who had a smattering of small, locally owned stores but were used to driving into Anchorage for other purchases, appeared to be uninterested in dictating the terms of the development."

My god! How can people live like this? No planning? No restrictions on what they can build? No sales tax? No uprising against the big box store? No "smart growth," or "sustainability"? It boggles the mind.

These Alaskans really are a barbaric subspecies; a missing link to America's lawless past, who haven't evolved much beyond a frontier state of mind and existence. And now they have a chance to put one of their own, named Palin, a heart beat away from the oval office. If that happens, all America will come to look and operate like Wasilla, Alaska. It will be the greatest setback for Western Civilization since Alaric sacked Rome.

Or so say the Brahmans at The Boston Globe.

Throwing in City Hall Helps Seal the Deal

Communities across the country are selling their souls, and selling the taxpayers out, in order to win bidding wars with other communities over the retention or relocation of jobs and companies. The panhandlers in pinstripes shrewdly play one city (or one state) off against another, to secure the best "incentive" packages, usually involving huge tax abatements or cash on the barrel head.

But this is the first time, as far as I know, that City Hall has been auctioned off as part of the "deal." Reports the Daytona Beach News-Journal:

"And to sweeten the deal on their end, the city in September offered up City Hall as the company's new headquarters at $240,000 annually, with the option to buy it for $3 million within three years. Meneough said, although the company will be breaking ground soon on a 200,000-square-foot facility, the City Hall offer was instrumental in Palm Coast being selected. "Without it, it would have been a very difficult decision to make to stay here and move jobs here," Meneough said."

It's outrageous. It's pathetic. It's unbelievable. But the auctioning off of City Hall is also a fitting symbol of how mercenary, and how out of hand, the corporate whoring, and community pandering, has become.

Colorado Corrects the Record

Secretary of State Mike Coffman yesterday challenged the facts and conclusions of a New York Times story -- the subject of my blog post yesterday -- that claimed Colorado and 5 other states were illegally purging voters from the rolls. Coffman identified at least two major factual errors in the story; something he blamed on miscommunication between his office and the paper, rather than biased or sloppy journalism. And, just to make the critique bipartisan, State Democratic Party chair Pat Waak chimed in, confirming the inaccuracies.

The Rocky has a more thorough treatment of the story here.

Will the Times correct the record? Perhaps. But don't look for that in bold black on page 1-A. The correction will be tucked away, in the smallest print possible, where you'll have to hunt for it. And in the meantime, the perception has been created, just a few weeks before election day, that states are "illegally" purging people from the voter rolls, in what might sound, to a casual or sloppy news reader, like some sort of dark plot.

You can bet the story was also been clipped and filed away by certain law firms, just in case the outcomes of certain razor thin races are contested in court.

These problems originate not with the states, as I pointed out yesterday, but with Washington's 2002 effort to "fix" a state-based election system that wasn't, by and large, broken. That's the real story -- which the Times brushed past in its search for something more sensational.

Federal "Help" Becomes Election Hindrance

Talk about a letdown.

One of the top stories in today’s New York Times takes you from 60 to 0 in about 11 seconds, by promising much more than it delivers -- which might create misperceptions for people who glance at a headline, gasp at the implications, but don’t bother to actually read the story.

“States' Actions to Block Voters Appear Illegal” is how the story is headlined. And the lead promises something big: "Tens of thousands of eligible voters in at least six swing states have been removed from the rolls or have been blocked from registering in ways that appear to violate federal law, according to a review of state records and Social Security data by The New York Times."

There’s a qualifier in there, the word “appear,” which might make one wary of jumping to conclusions. But otherwise, this seems like dynamite in print. Yet in the story’s second paragraph, for those who get that far, the dynamite turns into a dud, as the Times explains that this isn’t the result of some dark partisan plot, or a dirty tricks operation run out of RNC headquarters, but due to bureaucratic errors and – ironically -- the convolutions of a 2002 effort by Congress to improve elections integrity!

“The actions do not seem to be coordinated by one party or the other, nor do they appear to be the result of election officials intentionally breaking rules, but are apparently the result of mistakes in the handling of the registrations and voter files as the states tried to comply with a 2002 federal law, intended to overhaul the way elections are run,” concedes the Times – leaving this reader feeling mislead, but also enlightened.

The real story here is that the so-called “Help American Vote Act of 2002" (passed by Congress in an overreaction to the Florida voting debacle), by trying to create a federal fix for a state-administered voting system that wasn’t, by and large, broken, is creating more problems than it solved. Far from “helping” America vote, the act has become a hindrance. And if the outcome of this election ends up in court, Washington's meddling, not hanging chads, will be to blame.

Washington, in trying to “help,” made our lives a little harder.

But that isn’t news, is it?

Obamunami Update

The surge in Iraq may not be working for Barack Obama as a debating point, but another surge -- the tidal wave of newly-registered voters -- is working for him where it counts even more, on the political battlefield in Colorado. I predicted, only a few posts ago, that Obama will win convincingly in Colorado, based on a flurry of stories, from around the state, indicating that the surge in new voter registrations is running overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats. Today comes two more stories, from Pitkin County and Eagle County, confirming the trend.

These are smaller counties, it's true. And Republicans will argue that, statewide, they still have an edge, depending on how Colorado's large block of unaffiliated voters break. Here's a snapshot of the situation from 40,000 feet, which doesn't seem as dire for the GOP. But the momentum, and the numbers game, clearly is moving decisively against them, irrespective of debate performances or political advertising barrages.

An Obamunami is coming. All the GOP can do now is duck and cover.

But perhaps, after some years of wandering in the political wilderness, if the party's leaders can rediscover core values and articulate a coherent philosophy and agenda, the Republicans can return a stronger contender, having regained both their souls and the political high ground.

Lead Them not into Temptation

For those of us who live in "bear country" -- though I still say we humans conquered it fair and square, and to the victors go the sprawl -- this is the time of year when encounters are more likely to occur, as the bruins go into their pre-hibernation feeding frenzy. And that means it's also the time of year for a lot of finger-wagging and guilt-tripping by wildlife officials and animal activists, who love to lecture the rest of us on the need to minimize temptations, so our provocations don't get an animal in trouble, or shot as a nuisance.

All the rogues in this world view are human; all the beasts, blameless. There is no such thing as a nuisance bear, just a nuisance human, who needs to be properly trained. Animal control is out; people control is in. If we get our faces ripped off, that's just the price we pay for invading bear habitat. Payback's a bitch.

And the lectures are increasingly backed up by stiff fines for those who don't weld their garbage cans shut, or fail to batten down doors and windows securely against home invasion, or allow tempting food odors to waft unchecked into the air, leading the innocents down the road to perdition. La Plata County, in Western Colorado, is the latest to put the onus for curbing nuisance animals on people -- link -- with a "bear-proofing" ordinance.

"La Plata County's ordinance will require householders, businesses and homeowner associations to either have a bear-proof garbage can or Dumpster or keep unsecured garbage cans in a safe area except for three hours on collection day," reports The Durango Herald. "Fines for violations would be stiffer than originally proposed. Instead of $100, $200 and $500 fines for successive violations, the scale would increase to $200, $300 and $500, respectively. A first-time violator could avoid the fine by purchasing or leasing a bear-proof garbage receptacle. Bear-proof cans cost $200 to $250 each."

This people-are-the-problem mindset gets a little annoying to those of us who take reasonable precautions, and who aren't anti-wildlife, but still have to be "bear aware," and looking over our shoulders, when we go out to pick up the paper each morning. Running into a sow and two cubs, as I did one day a number of years ago, groping through the early morning murk without my contacts on, can make for a potentially rude awakening. The charm of hosting urban wildlife wears off when encounters get a little too close. My wife hit a deer -- actually, it hit her -- on her way to the office a few years ago, even though we live right in the city and it's a concrete jungle between here and there. What rats are to New York, deer are to some parts of Colorado Springs.

The neighborhoods where I've lived in Colorado Springs are long-established, so it's ridiculous to suggest, as wildlife apologists do, that my presence constitutes an encroachment on bear habitat, giving them license to roam at will. My neighborhood has been human habitat since the 1930s at least, and bears still haven't gotten the message. There's a lot of counter-encroachment going on, as bear, deer, fox and mountain lion become more fearless and more urbanized.

We're repeatedly told that the animals are drifting down into developed areas because wild food is scarce. Every year, it seems, we hear reports that acorns aren't plentiful enough, or berries aren't bursting. But the truth is that these animals aren't in town by necessity, but by choice. It's just easier raiding garbage cans and breaking into homes than it is grubbing for acorns or scrounging for berries. Yet wildlife officials like to maintain the pretense that these situations are anomalies, rather than the norm, just as they like to suggest that most human-bear encounters -- they never, ever use the word "attack" -- result from some confusion, or perhaps even physical or mental illness, on the animal's part.

This recent story in the Boulder Daily Camera may give those who don't live in "bear country" a taste of this pervasive, people-are-the-problem guilt-tripping. Here's how the Camera wrote it up:

"With the season for bear hibernation approaching, the lure of fresh fruit hanging from trees in Boulder was enough to bring a small group of volunteers together Saturday to eliminate some of the sweet temptations that draw bears to the city.

Billie Gutgsell organized the first Community Harvest Day and works for Bear Smart Campaign and WildEarth Guardians -- groups that try to raise awareness that so-called "nuisance bears" are wild creatures with a natural tendency to seek out food. "We want to bring out public awareness that this isn't a bear problem, it's a people problem," Gutgsell said. "They're not nuisance bears, it's just a nuisance situation."

Gutgsell, with a group of about half-a-dozen volunteers, picked mostly apples from Boulder residents' trees to help reduce the number of bears wandering into the city scavenging for food. The picked fruit will be shipped to the Wild Animal Sanctuary in Keenesburg, which will feed about 48 rescued bears from across the country who are taking shelter there.

"People need to act now to prevent any more bears from learning bad habits," Gutgsell said. "Once learned, it's impossible to get them to stop." Possible bear-human encounters aren't just dangerous for people. The Division of Wildlife tags and relocates bears who are deemed a threat because of breaking into homes or rummaging through garbage. And if a tagged bear is found back in the city causing problems, it's considered a risk to people and killed."

Personally, I blame Walt Disney (and, more recently, the Animal Channel and Discover Channel, etc.) for anthropomorphizing and over-romanticizing animals in a way that helped create the animal cult we see developing in America today. Anyone who's been watching The Grizzly Man Diaries, or who's seen previews for this other creepy show, about the guy who thinks he's a wolf, can see this taken to its insane extremes. But this mindset, in a lesser form, also inhibits the ability of Westerners to deal rationally with our animal management issues -- meaning that the conflicts will escalate, and the human and animal casualties will mount, as time goes on.

Brace for the Obamunami

Even if Sarah Palin wipes the floor with Joe Biden’s hair plugs tonight, the political tide seems to be turning decisively against the GOP here in Colorado, judging from a flurry of recent stories about voter registration trends.

In story after story after story we learn that there’s been a significant surge in voter registration -- a surge that heavily favors Democrats. Left-wing celebrities are venturing out into "flyover country," including pivotal Colorado, to boost registration among impressionable college students. Obamanistas are even having a voter registration pub crawl in Boulder, helping ensure he'll get the beer-guzzler vote

Now, we’re told by experts that many of the newly-registered don’t actually show up to vote. We're also reassured, by Republican politicos whistling past the graveyard, that this remains a solidly red state, statistically speaking. But even if half the newly-registered show up election day, the GOP seems in serious trouble. Palin's star status seems to be fading far faster than Obama's is, barring an electrifying performance tonight.

For all the talk about debates, and the candidate's positioning, and how 11th hour developments like the economic crisis could suddenly shake things up, politics is still a numbers game. And the numbers just don‘t look good for the GOP. If there’s no significant game-changer, I predict that Obama will carry Colorado -- decisively.

Biden Gets Scrubbed -- Just Not as Hard

A few posts back, I chided the "mainstream media" for their obsessive "investigations" of Sara Palin's past, which have turned up some less-than-devastating revelations about her college-hopping youth, the special treatment she may have received on a zoning matter and her receipt of free flowers and a salmon while serving as mayor of Wasilla, Alaska. I asked, sarcastically, whether Sen. Joe Biden would undergo a similar scrubbing, even though, as a member of the senate since Richard Nixon was president, he seems to be a "known commodity."

Well, as one who likes to give credit where credit's due, I feel obligated to point out this story in today's New York Times, which does do a little gentle probing into the "real" Joe Biden, painting a portrait that doesn't quite square with the "just Joe from Scranton" persona he wants to project.

It makes the point, which I made in my post, that people in positions of power almost invariably get some perks out of the deal, whether they serve as a mayor in Alaska or a lifer in the U.S. Senate. If the individual is unscrupulous, this can obviously be corrupting. Ted Stevens serves as the most recent case in point. But it's important, in the witch hunt atmosphere that prevails post-Abramoff, that we keep things in perspective, and don't go around tarring all politicians, and otherwise upstanding people, with the same dark stain.

So, yes, Joe Biden got some media scrubbing -- though not the kind of behind-the-ears scrubbing Palin is getting.