Big night tonight.
Tyler and Jon will tackle ethics reform with an interview with Rep. Jack Draxler. He says it “goes too far.”
Also, Logan has been reported as one of the top 5 “safest cities.” How much do we spend to keep it that way?
And today is Cyber Monday. The Black Friday of online shopping. But some are saying don’t shop online, shop local. For the economy…
Your calls are welcome.
- Group association, and why we believe what we believe.
- An interesting review of campaign books, and understanding the “new” presidential campaigns.
- Can real time feedback make us better drivers?
- Senate health care debate begins at 3pm EST today. How do House and Senate bills differ?
- Things to do with old light bulbs.
- 7 out of 10 Utahns say gay rights should be extended statewide.
- 20 Gadgets That Innovate Ordinary Things.
- Climate Change: why are deniers so eager to risk it?
Tyler, Jon and I — with the help of many others from all around the valley — have put together a lil’ somepin’ special for the holiday. Hope you enjoy it.
Tune in, or listen online. (No calls… it’s not live, it’s Memorex… is Memorex even still around?)
- Economic oddities: if we think we’re going to be okay, then we’ll probably be okay.
- Skynet will not sneak up on this president.
- Cuts at the Washington Post.
- The Muppets do Bohemian Rhapsody.
- UT Dems: GOP isn’t taking ethics seriously.
- Utah Legislature mulls media credentials for utah bloggers.
- Would a death penalty turn terrorists into martyrs?
- So… about all that “the bill is too long!” whining…
- I’m very excited to see this movie this weekend.
- Public Polling Policy: A look at the 2010 Senate picture.
Today is our final “live” day this week, so we’re making it special with a guest visit from (small L) libertarian, and KVNUForthePeople.com contributor Michael Reis in studio.
We’ll discuss Sutherland Prez Paul Mero’s latest “Mero Moment” on feminism and women in sports, and touch on Adam Lambert’s AMA performance, and how it relates to parental responsibility and TV. (Complain, protest, or just change the channel and talk to your kids about why?)
And finally, Tyler will leave us to catch a flight, and Jon and Michael will gang up on Jason in the Libertarian/Liberal Smackdown of Aught ’09. (My money is on me) We’ll discuss the difference between Big L and little l libertarianism, taxation, military protection, and why Libertarian Party candidates never show up for debates they agree to do.
[UPDATE, post show: The Smackdown turned into a Libertarian/libertarian smackdown, with me as moderator. Give it a listen if you missed it.]
Your calls are welcome.
From KVNU listener Jessicathe:
“I can’t sit and be silent on an issue that has caused so much frustration in my community. I am referring to the Cache County School District School Board’s recent decision to change the elementary schools in North Logan and Smithfield to a K-5 configuration.
The school board, with the exception of Allen Grunig, sent out a strong message to the parents, teachers, and superintendent in the Cache County School District. That message is this: Your opinion doesn’t matter and you aren’t smart enough to know what’s best for your community or children.
My anger would not be as strong if the district had not chosen to make this a public issue. Had the configuration change been simply listed on an upcoming agenda of a board meeting, and had I not attended and voiced an opinion, then I wouldn’t have the right to be angry. However, the district held parent input meetings. They posted information on their website. They sent ballots to the families of affected students. They spoke of the proposed changes to teachers in faculty meetings. They made the issue a PUBLIC issue.
So, in practicality, a person would assume if school board members attended said public meetings (which they did) and were made aware of the results of balloting and of teacher’s opinions, that they may have an interest in voting in reflection of what their constituents and teachers overwhelmingly were in support of.
Not in our district. In our district, and more specifically in our affected communities, nearly 70% of parents, nearly 100% of teachers, and the superintedent can all be in support of something and still our elected officials will vote differently.
So now, in the aftermath, I send my 4 kids off to district schools with the feeling that the district could really care less about them. I send them to be taught by teachers who also are re-evaluating where they fit in the district and have a terrible morale. I send them to school with best friends they’ve had for years who next year won’t even be in their school. I wonder why I would want to help the district or support the district ever again since I and many other parents have been set straight on the value of our opinions.
This has been a crushing decision in my community. It will split North Logan and split best friends. It will pull teachers out of classrooms they have personalized over the years. Teachers who had an incredible co-op will now find themselves with less peer resources. It will create new batches of issues such as moving school libraries and having children walking to schools where cars go 45 mph and there are no sidewalks. Schools need to be retrofitted and made into something they were never intended to be.
And most incredibly this decision has taught me, a loyal and believing voter, that voting isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. You can loyally research and vote, and still elected officials will follow their own agenda. I guess I’ve been naive to believe that I have a voice in this community.
I hope those on the school board who chose to vote opposite to what their consituents publicly have voiced as their desires will find a swift exit in their next election. That is, if any of us show up to vote. ”
I’d like to add one more thing. If there are any parent groups out there who are organizing any protest or appeal (if that’s an option) to this decision, please let me know and I’ll help.
Thanks,
Jessica Littlefield
North Logan
Today we’ll discuss the holiday after the holiday: Black Friday!
(Will FTP Movieshow’s Andy Morgan get in any fights this year over Transformer toys?)
Also, Sutherland Institute has made a recommendation that we do away with the Office of Tourism for the state of Utah. But tourism is a big part of our economy. We’ll discuss the pros and cons.
And school realignment in Cache Valley is taking some by surprise. Good idea, or worst idea ever? We want to hear from you.
Your calls are welcome.
- Famous boat captains, compared.
- Oceans rising faster than expected.
- Faith based politics of Sarah and Glenn.
- Take a tour of China’s Economic Landscape.
- How to Pay Off Afghan Warlords.
- 50 most interesting Wikipedia articles.
- Campaign contributions of those blocking the public option. (You’re kidding, millions from Ins. Co’s? No way!)
- Some reality on deficits and economic boosts.
Via Newseum. With video.
“Inside Tim Russert’s Office: If It’s Sunday, It’s ‘Meet the Press’” recreates Russert’s NBC Washington office much as it looked when he died of a heart attack in June 2008 while preparing for his next show.
The office, located on the Newseum’s fourth level, offers a unique window into the world of a newsman at the top of his game.
Russert’s desk is stacked high with research material, books and handwritten notes, illustrating the rigorous preparation Russert put into each show. “Meet the Press” frequently broke news and was the most-watched Sunday morning public affairs program.
Family, faith and sports were important themes in Russert’s life, as evidenced by his favorite books, family photos and mementos of his beloved Buffalo Bills that line his office.
- Legislative window dressing masquerading as reform.
- Obama below 50% for the first time.
- And he’s raising money off of Sarah Palin.
- Deep thoughts about marshmallows.
- Tea Parties: The Movie!
- Google: The Takeover! (UPDATE: SEE!!!)
- Political amnesia and the economy: The Bush Tax Cuts.
- Apparently they protest everything now.
- Can science fight media disinformation?
Jake Saunders, Cache County firefighter and paramedic, joins us today to discuss the Cache Valley Fire Public Education Coalition and fundraiser for the Dennis Sorensen Charity Fund. (More info @ 435-716-9518, leave a message with your info request or http://www.cachecounty.org/fire):
On Thursday, October 22, 2009, the home belonging to the parents of Logan City Firefighter Steve Sorensen located in College Ward was suddenly and completely destroyed by a gas-leak explosion. The Cache Valley Fire Public Education Coalition is raising money for the family to help pay for medical bills. You can purchase Holiday See’s Candy through the Fire Public Education Coalition.
Click here for more information
We’ll also discuss plans to remodel the Logan City Council chambers (Yes, the new council chambers), and catch up with the progress on plans for a new senior center in downtown logal.
And Obama hatred, part two. New polls show 52% of Republicans believe that Obama stole the election, with the help of ACORN, of course. What gives, GOPers?
Your calls are welcome.
Slate Magazine, always the contrarians, pick through the Senate health care bill to see what’s inside, and how it compares to the House bill.
It’s worse mainly because it’s stingier. The Senate bill would save $130 billion over 10 years (a mysterious $1 billion more than the figure leaked last night by the Democratic leadership), $21 billion more than the House bill, which would save $109 billion. For about $2 billion a year, then, we could have a significantly better bill. That’s less than what the Pentagon spends in two days. Still, we probably aren’t going to get it. The numbers most people pay attention to are the bill’s cost before taking into account offsetting savings (mainly through Medicare cuts) and taxes. The House bill would “cost” a little more than $1 trillion, whereas the Senate bill would “cost” a mere $848 billion. That puts Reid below a limit of $900 billion set by President Obama in a Sept. 9 speech to Congress. The limit, Ezra Klein of the Washington Post has shown, was completely arbitrary—indeed, Obama’s precise words were “around $900 billion”—but it became holy writ.
The Senate bill does not differ significantly from the House bill in the number of people to whom it would extend health insurance. The House bill would cover 36 million of the roughly 45 million uninsured. The Senate bill would cover 31 million. But the Senate would spend about $150 billion less in subsidies to help uninsured lower-income people purchase health insurance through the newly established health exchanges. To ease the added burden this would impose on the uninsured, who under both the House and Senate bills would be required to purchase health insurance, the Senate bill includes a substantially reduced penalty for failing to comply (up to $750, versus up to 2.5 percent of total income under the House bill). Unfortunately, as Jonathan Cohn of the New Republic explains, the subsidies have also been shifted somewhat relative to the House bill, falling in the Senate bill more heavily on poorer folks in order to ease the burden on the politically more powerful middle class.
More of their break down here.
Great article @ Utah Stories today that digs into history, while making an intriguing statement about our current recession, and the future of our state economy. A clip:
This issue of Utah Stories is about five business owners who have found ways of operating their businesses more efficiently using the Internet and technology. Their success isn’t limited to the Utah marketplace or the confines of their brick and mortar business. They understand that the new “flat-earth” marketplace has no walls limiting the scale of operations. These business owners have managed to escape the typical scope most small businesses maintain — and see the bigger picture.
The wealth these business owners have created benefits us all: they provide jobs, increase economic activity through the exchange of local labor and local goods and services, and in so doing provide wealth to hundreds of other businesses and thousands of consumers.
The ideas and innovations that these business owners use, represent our answer to overcoming the current recession.
Read the entire story here.
- Bright lights, small cities.
- Oh no, Eggo rationing?! SOCIALISM!
- Cat fought the law, and the law won.
- Public Policy Polling: the GOP needs a new face.
- Progressive blogger polling: The Democrats need to step it up.
- Rob Bishop: Tree huggers er takin’ er jaaaawbs!!!
- Eager brings “dumb” to Utah, gives it a microphone.
- CNN/Opinion Research Poll: Republicans prefer ideology to pragmatism.
- The “Woot Off” continues.
They are all topics on today’s show.
We’ll discuss new efforts to tamp down on graffiti in the community, and an upcoming Safe Driving Summit.
And since it’s Tuesday we’ll have the latest intallment of the Mero Moment. What will Paul have to say? We don’t know yet ourselves, so listen for it.
And Obama hatred. It’s so trendy. But why?
Your calls are welcome.
538′s number crunching savants Nate Silver and Tom Schaller have a bet on Sarah Palin. Silver thinks she’ll run, Schaller thinks she’s just trying to cash in and get out. Silver’s argument:
Tom provides two pieces of evidence against Palin running for the nomination. The first is that 2012 is a year when an incumbent, Barack Obama, will almost certainly be running for re-election, and incumbents seats are much tougher to pick up than open ones. The second is that Palin’s polling has gone somewhat sour against her potential GOP rivals, which might deter her from entering.
For starters, I’d somewhat dispute Tom’s unspoken assumption that Palin is liable to be looking at this decision through such a narrowly rational prism. Was quitting the Alaska governorship — particularly in the sudden and disorganized way that Palin did it — a decision characteristic of someone who carefully ponders all the facts and circumstances before jumping to a conclusion? Not hardly. Palin is impulsive, impatient, ambitious, thrill-seeking: not the type of politician to prudently wait for a better moment.
But assuming that Palin is rational, and that her goal is to maximize her chance of someday becoming President (or at least winning the nomination), it’s not clear that 2012 is a worse bet for her than 2016. Yes, the GOP, as a whole, is likely to have a better shot at winning the Presidency in 2016 than in 2012. But Palin may also face stiffer competition within her own party in 2016. In part that’s precisely because non-incumbent races end to attract stronger candidates – witness, for instance, the poor quality of the Republican field in 1996 – and in part it’s because the present field of GOP rivals (Romney, et. al.) seems almost preternaturally weak
I think she’ll at least explore a run, polls be damned. And also assuming we’re still having “tea parties” in 2012. I hope she does. Political Wire catches my own motives nicely with this little accidental commentary:
If you visit the page for Sarah Palin’s book on Amazon.com, it says “Buy Going Rogue: An American Life and get Catastrophe at an additional 5% off.”
I think it would be one of the most entertaining presidential races in my lifetime. And that’s saying a lot, considering I’m still getting mileage out of Rudy Giulliani and Fred Thompson in my personal comedy routines.
Tyler is out today, so Jon and I have boarded up the studio in preparation for the Ultimate Battle of Liberal vs. Libertarian Smackdown Challenge of ’09. Or something similar.
The annual Copenhagen Conference on Climate Change is coming up (Dec 7). Proposed is a legally binding international treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Jon and I will try to cut through some of the spin and demagoguery in the climate change discussion to understand why this will or will not (should, should not?) happen.
And via The Senate Site, an article from Utah politico Lavar Webb, who writes: “Cutting services or raising taxes? Let the voters decide.” Should Utah’s budgeting and revenue future be put to a popular vote? Would doing so be democracy in action, or a legislature running away from hard choices with their tail between their legs? We want to hear from you.
Your calls are welcome.
- If we really had “pro-life” legislators.
- Are gold prices about to become volatile?
- Why employment will rebound sooner than you think.
- The wonderful world of prison inventions.
- Obama’s crackdown on “burrowing.”
- Are you addicted to a website? Try keepmeout.com.
- Rocky Anderson… for Senate?
- Unbelievable things spilled on the road by trucks.
- Security theater.
Interesting timeline of American consumerism provided by the author of Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.
The book provides a history and subtle warning about our move away from craftsmanship to a fixation on “cheap for cheap’s sake.”
From the PBC blog:
1930s: Congress passes fair-trade legislation to prohibit predatory price cutting, but the number of chain stores almost triples by the end of the decade. Advertisements encourage Americans to shop as a matter of “patriotic duty.”
1940s: Prices soar with inflation and scarcity during WWII. Appliance discounter Eugene Ferkauf dodges law suits while price-cutting in his E.J. Korvette stores, which have large areas for shopping and keep cash registers at the front of the store.
1950s: “Cheap” loses much of its stigma. Newly-formed families after WWII fill new homes with appliances and other household technologies. More than 25 million homes have a television by 1953, and discount stores, lacking a sales service, jump into broadcast advertising. Legal barriers to price-cutting disappear and 3,000 discount chains reach annual sales of $5 billion by the end of the decade. The first indoor shopping mall is built outside Minneapolis.
1960s: Discount merchandise quickly dominates retail industries, especially in suburbs. Stores track sales more efficiently with computers. The “just-in-time” distribution model, where a retailer uses next-day product delivery, shifts inventory responsibility from retailer to manufacturer. Shopping carts offer convenience and help drive up the sale of nonessential items.
1970s: Energy shortages, unemployment and inflation push consumers to value low price over variety and durability. President Carter warns the nation to be wary of materialism. Factory outlet centers open in rural areas and boom in business.
1980s: Discount retailers start using bar codes to track inventory. Department stores merge, as do pharmacies, toy stores and hardware stores, and big conglomerates strike cheap deals with manufacturers, making it harder for non-chains to stay competitive.
1990s: Wal-Mart becomes the nation’s largest private employer and the world’s largest retailer in 1992 as the nation’s manufacturing productivity nearly doubles. Family-run department stores such as Macy’s and Saks Fifth Avenue file for bankruptcy; less than half of 1980’s departments stores survive the decade. By then, Wal-Mart has a store in more than half the nation’s counties. Outlet malls become popular again and triple their growth.
2000s: Retail chains sell 72 percent of American clothing (up from 48 percent in 1993). President Bush encourages Americans to continue shopping after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks shock the nation. Thriftiness abounds as gas prices rise, housing prices fall, credit dries up and economic recession hits the country. Cut-throat price competition becomes the norm for most retailers.
I don’t disagree with the timeline, obviously, but I’m having a hard time wrapping my head around the premise of the book. Maybe it’s just subconscious justification on my part, but I’ve always believed when I shop for “cheap” I do so because I want to save money.
The author argues that isn’t the case, and that we are actually now part of a culture where “cheap” means “better” to us, which obviously isn’t always the case.
The Podcast
