Today’s show will be our final installment for 2010.

In celebration, respect, mourning, or all of the above, we’ll recap the year, and hear from listeners on what where the biggest stories.  What mattered to you most this year?  The elections?  The economy?  The weather?  The Mitchell Trial? The Utah Senate 2011 seating chart? Ben Winslow’s Twitter feed?

With the help of our pals at Klout.com, we’ll break down the top social media trends of 2010, and see how well the online world kept up with the real world.

Some 2010 recaps to get you going:

• Businessweek: It wasn’t that bad of a year.  So why did it feel like it?
• Glenn Beck’s 15 biggest whoppers.
• Rottentomatoes: The year’s 5 best films.
• 2010 political highlights from across the pond.
• 2010′s political surprises.
• Top gadgets of the year.
• 2010′s biggest smackdown, Obama vs. the Tea Party?  Nope: Google vs. Facebook.

And the Pew folks take the year end recap meta with the Top 10 Stories: 2001-2010.

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Tonight:

Who were the craziest, funniest, best or worst candidates of 2010?  Here’s one list.  Who’s on yours?

One Utah legislator wants to see a return of the gold standard.  It’s really just amazing how having a Democrat in the White House can effect (Ahhhhhhh!) our local reactionary ninnies reps.  Amazing.  Or this actually a good idea?

And Olympic gold medalist Rulon Gardner will be in studio to discuss his experience on The Biggest Loser tv show (he’s home on a break), his Elite Training Center, and anything else he tells us to.  Would you argue with him?

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Tonight:

ABC4 reports that a new school voucher bill is being drafted for the 2011 legislative session, and that Rep. Carl Wimmer is involved.  Over 70% of Utah voters rejected school vouchers in 2007, and it’s been a thorn in the side of some legislators (Wimmer included) ever since.  ABC4 says the new bill wouldn’t be nearly as broad as the ’07 legislation, so is this “Vouchers Lite” approach something Utah parents would approve, or will it meet the same fate as previous voucher proposals?  A better idea than the first, or bitter legislators looking for revenge?  On a related note: How to Survive a Zombie (Legislation) Attack.

Utah legislators call for a federal constitutional convention.

Logan Mayor Randy Watts says power projects are going to be a big part of Logan’s future development.  We’ll discuss some of the ideas proposed, and get your feedback on what other ideas should be considered.

This week’s Mero Moment by Sutherland Institute President Paul Mero covers Utah Democrats.  Specifically, why they haven’t gained more ground, in response to this “proud” op-ed.

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Tonight:

We’ll kick of a week of 2010 in review.  What were the highs and lows of the year?  Which transportation construction site was your favorite?

The free throw that defied physics.

Check out The Utah Government Daily.

Kevin Miller, author of “Freedom Nationally, Virtue Locally… or Socialism!” joins us at 5pm today, explaining his claim that “conservatives’ pursuit of virtue will lead to socialism.”  He’ll be taking your calls and questions.

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In our final show before the holiday, we’ll be out at the Logan Arthouse Cinema broadcasting in advance of their First Annual Messiah “Sing-a-long” (Starts at 7pm, Entrance: one can of food for the CV Food Pantry).

Jonathan will be taking part in the sing-a-long, and you can stop by before to say hi to the KVNU FTP crew, mingle, practice, etc.

We’ll be discussing the biggest headlines of the year, Rep. Carl Wimmer’s “No in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants” bill, anti-discrimination ordinances (and the Senate President’s hint at repealing them all), checking in with Logan Arthouse Cinema’s John Rivera on what they have in store for 2011, and more.

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Tonight:

A ranking of US cities places Logan, UT the #1 “Christmas City” in the nation.  Find out why, and offer up your own ranking of what makes Cache Valley at large the coolest place on the planet any time of the year.

Obama and Biden sing 2010 out.

Support the Ferguson family.

We’ve talked before of San Francisco’s “War on Happy Meals,” banning toys in Happy Meals.  But now things have escalated.  McDonald’s is now being sued for “targeting” children with their “Killer Happy Meals.” Elements of the suit dredge up memories of the suits against tobacco companies, but are Happy Meals really as dangerous as a pack of Camel Lights?

Via Tom Grover on Facebook: Things that are not in the Constitution.  Some of them might surprise you.

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Tonight:

Playing on Twitter today, I caught (and with my usual snarky wit, injected myself into) this exchange.

RT @cboyack: .@heydebhenry Why should I be forced to pay for the needs of 9/11 first responders? Why not let me voluntarily donate to help? #utpol

Seriously?  Someone call the whaaaaaambulance!  To quoth a WWII generation relative of mine, speaking in 2009: “This Tea Party crowd likes to talk about oppression, but taxes as oppression?  They have no idea…” Sure there’s reasonable debate over levels of taxation.  But the assertion that somehow having to pay taxes as tyrannical oppression is like listening to a teenager complain about their allowance.  Kids these days.  Get off my lawn!

The serious question for listeners: Taxes – tyrannical oppression, or dues for living the coolest country on the planet?

Net Neutrality (kind of) was approved by the FCC today.  Orrin Hatch and Jason Chaffetz called it an assault on the internet’s “freedom.”  But is it?  And is what passed really a policy that will really keep the Net neutral? (Related: Online Smurfberry’s are costly.)

The 610KVNU Holiday Dollar Drive is still on.  Make a secure online donation, be entered to win a gigantic TV!

More census numbers are out, making Utah’s fourth congressional seat official.  We’ll speak with USU political science professor Dr. Michael Lyons about what this means for Utah, and who might (cough Carl Wimmer cough) have an early eye on the spot.  On a national level, census data may be a game changer in the 2012 races, including the race for the White House.  We’ll discuss.

And playing a bit late today, the Mero Moment.  Sutherland Institute President tackles an infuriating story from the DNews.

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Tonight:

Michael has invited his fellow uber-libertarian pal Ty Mortensen in as a guest today.  We’ll be discussing the TSA, NSA, permanent DUI checkpoint legislation, corporatism, START treateis, DADT repeal, and everything else under the sun to find out just where progressive and libertarian ideologies meet (hint: It isn’t in the Utah GOP).

Local volunteer fire departments have been shrinking, but they’re still around.  We’ll find out how they still service many communities in the valley, and how they interact with the larger, state funded departments.

And say you’re a libertarian or progressive minded person in the US now, finding neither party necessarily meeting your ideological needs.  What do you do?  Third party?  Change one of the existing parties?  Buy a cabin in the woods?  Chime in today at 5pm.

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Tonight:

Breaking news just before showtime today: The House has passed a stand alone DADT repeal, and back in the Senate (where the measure failed last week), Sen. Olympia Snowe has signed on as the (potential) 61st “yea.” Looks like there will be a repeal.  We’ll take a look at the support and opposition for the repeal, and how the policy came to be under Clinton.

Time has announced their Person of the Year: Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.  While not quite as lame as last year’s “person” (you!), it once again demands we trump this mediocre pick with the KVNU FTP Person of the Year.  Who’s your pick?

Sen. Howard Stephenson’s “Utah Taxpayer”s Association” is a serious player in the dialog of every legislatilve session since the Dinosaurs.  But recently, the association seems to have gone off the rails with an anti-education, anti-anything-that-isn’t-a-giant-corporation’s-idea, barely credible agenda.  While providing much comic relief, it’s a great example of what happens when organizations hoping to influence the dialog forget about the actual dialog.

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Tonight:

A brother and sister duo with experience in SLC’s homeless shelters are bringing their good deeds to Cache Valley with the Cache Community Dinner on Christmas Day.  If you have no where else to go, this even is your place for the holiday.  We’ll get the details and find out how you can volunteer or attend.

Senator Bob Bennett gave his farewell speech on the senate floor last week in lead up to his last day as a senator this Friday. Per listener request, we’ll play the audio of the speech, which offers a nice glimpse of a long career in politics from a pretty decent senator (no matter what 3,000 right wing delegates say).

Sutherland Institute Paul Mero serves up another Mero Moment, this week on transparency in Utah government (or lack there of!).  Transparency is a big deal to the Sutherland Institute, and they seem prepared to take the legislature on in an effort to increase it.  This one is a must hear.

And speaking of transparency, GoodJobsFirst.org asks: Do you know how much your state is subsidizing big businesses behind your back?  And they help you get the answer.

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Tonight:.

A lot of talk of bipartisan compromises in the news these days, but once again, the polls show an electorate that may want there to be more definition, not less, between the two parties.  Which camp are you in?

Cache Valley’s law enforcement agencies are gearing up for their annual Polar Bear Plunge in January.  We’ll hear details on how you can watch a bunch of police officers risk life and limb in the icey waters of Hyrum Dam for charity.

Ted Turner has gone crazy.

Taylorsville Republican Jim Dunnigan has come up with a solution in legislation form for the illegal fireworks trade between Wyoming and Utah: Legalize them, regulate their production to make them more fire safe.  His reasoning?  The ban isn’t stopping their use in Utah, so let’s stop the ban, and help producers make them safer for dry states.  It’s a great idea.  It’s also the same argument used by proponents of the legalization of Marijuana.  We’ll discuss.

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Local Activists Organize TSA Protest at SLC International Airport

Group states “We’re done with the TSA. It’s time to tell them how tired we are.”

Salt Lake City, UT, December 10, 2010 — Two weeks after the nationally-coordinated “Opt Out Day”, a pair of local bloggers and activists have organized another airport protest. Jesse Harris of Sandy, and Connor Boyack of Lehi, plan to demonstrate against the TSA at the SLC International Airport on Saturday, December 11, from 8 to 10am.

“This issue is not going away,” said Boyack. “The violation of our constitutionally-protected right to be free from searches and seizures applies as much to the airport traveler as it does to the person staying home. Flying is not a government-granted privilege and should not be contingent upon either being irradiated and turned into pornography by the TSA’s backscatter machines, or being molested by an agent.”

Harris agreed: “We’re done with cancer-causing backscatter machines. We’re done with virtual strip searches. We’re done with being felt up. We’re done with watching video after video of children getting molested by government sanction. We’re done with being presumed guilty just by buying a plane ticket. We’re done with getting our Fourth Amendment rights trampled. We’re done with security theater that assumes grandma is a terrorist.”

Joining the pair will be a couple dozen other participants at minimum, each bringing home-made signs with a variety of slogans and statements to protest against the TSA’s invasive screenings.

Along with their home-made signs, the group will be circulating 500 copies of a brochure Boyack designed that contains information relating to the TSA’s processes and why they should be rejected. The brochure can be accessed at http://connorboyack.com/drop/tsa.pdf. The group has secured a permit from the SLC airport director which allows them to distribute literature within the airport, but outside the secure areas.

According to the airport director’s office, the police and TSA have been notified of the group’s intent to demonstrate within the airport. “Our intent,” said Boyack, “is to educate passengers on their rights, on the nature of what the TSA is doing, and encourage them follow the lead of thousands of Americans who are refusing to fly until the TSA backs down.”

Contact:

Connor Boyack

(801) 376-2647
connorboyack.com

###

Tonight:

Senator Hillyard posted a lengthy preview of the state budget scenario he envisions, one day ahead of the release of the Governor’s budget proposal.  Some scary stuff in here, but Hillyard says: Don’t Panic!  Yet.

The legislative budget process can be ugly and quite upsetting. Unlike the Governor, who works through his budget proposal without public scrutiny (as he has spent many hours working privately with his agencies and the various groups who rely on State funding), the legislature must do everything under public debate and discussion. Whereas the Governor has the one and only final say, the legislature must work through committees and find consensus that at least 38 member of the House will support as well as 15 Senators AND the Governor. There are many different opinions on how the money should be used and the debate can be heated. In the end, the final budget will probably be much like the one proposed by the Governor.

Democrats threw a wrench in the plans of their own President today with the House passing a non-binding resolution to not accept the Obama/GOP “compromise” over the extension of the Bush Tax Cuts.  DADT Repeal fails a cloture vote in the Senate.  What happens next on these two?  Anybody’s guess.

Stokes Nature Center will host an event tomorrow night at Crumb Brothers titled “Religion and the Environment: Finding a Common Ground in Utah.” The forum will be conducted by George Handley, professor of Humanities at Brigham Young University.  We’ll speak with new Nature Center director Bob Green about the inspiration and hopes he has for the discussion.

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Tonight:

We’ll hear from State School Board member Tami Pyfer for an update on education policy in Utah, and a report done by Utahns for Public Schools on school funding and tax policy.

New reports show changes to Utah tax policies over the past decade have eroded public education funding by more than $1 billion per year.  Despite fairly generous increases over two of the past three fiscal years, Utah’s spending on Public Education still lags behind the rest of the country. Utah’s “funding effort”— defined as Public Education revenues per $1,000 in personal income—for Public Education has fallen from a high of 12th place in the nation to 34th place in 2005. This decline has kept us last in the nation in per-pupil spending by an ever-increasing margin.

We’ll also discuss what other states are doing to reform their public education systems — like Florida –  and take your feedback on what Utah should do.

Retiring State Rep Fred Hunsaker says the Utah Legislature has become “less diverse, more polarized” but that a core group are still shooting for the center and a way forward for the state that is less about ideological purity and more about getting things done.  Is this what Utah wants?

I am reading (listening to, really) All the Devils Are Here, a book going back through 20 years of history that led up to the financial crisis that decimated our economy.  The facts are infuriating, and the solutions are just as glib.  The crisis never really was about home ownership, but rather credit, and in short the history begs the question: Can Wall Street regain it’s moral compass?

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Tonight:

Logan City is inviting public comment on their proposal to strip money from local non-profits (grant money, generally designated for Food Banks, etc) and redirect it to city departments for things like sidewalk repair.  We have some “public comments” for Logan City ourselves.

Representatives of Bear River Health Department will join us in studio to talk about Cache Valley’s air quality concerns heading into Inversion Season.

In this week’s Mero Moment, Sutherland Institute President Paul Mero commemorates the 69th anniversary of the attacks on Pearl Harbor.  We’ll recap some of the events happening nation-wide, and even get some perspective from a  Veteran of the Korean and Vietnam wars — who witnessed the attack and aftermath at the age of 11 — who offers a cautionary example of the way we treated Japanese-Americans then, and our anti-Muslim mentality today, and what it really means to defend your country.

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Tonight:

Reading robots and genetically engineered crops. Are we crossing a line with technological advances that we’ll one day regret? One group, Safe-Foods.org, thinks so. How about you?

Rep. Jay Seegmiller pens an op-ed arguing that proposed plans for a nuclear power plant on the Green River are a step toward Utah becoming California’s nuke-waste dumping ground. If he’s right, should plans be scrapped, or is the revenue such a plant would generate worth it?

Sen. Lyle Hillyard has some concerns about the 2011 budget. Governor Sissypants will have his budget proposal out on Friday (and in the tradition of Utah’s Governors, it’s sure to be rosier than Hillyard’s projections). If we do end up with an ugly budget again this year, cuts or raising revenue will be the question again. So depending on what camp you’re in: What would you cut? What would you raise?

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Dec 2, 2010
To: KVNU’s For the People
From: Anna
Subject: Show Topics

Hey Gentlemen,

I listen to your show, sometimes just to yell at the radio, but I think that you do create discussion and I appreciate that. I am writing because I am finding myself in a state of desperation. I work with people with disabilities and have done so for the last 12 years. In the last 5+ years funding has drastically decreased and now the latest and most magical concept that is being tossed around is putting this care back on families and charities. Lovely concept, except for the fact that families, churches, and charities are doing all they can.

There are people with disabilities whose disability can cause aggression making them unsafe to live in family settings. There are community settings (not institutions or group homes) that can be of support to these people, but as of late when people come into my office I send them away with a pamphlet and wish them good luck. Yesterday I sat with a mother whose severely disabled son can receive no supports. She has other children, she works hard, she pays her taxes. She is not looking for a handout and there is nothing for her. I wonder if the general public realize this is happening. I wonder if people understand that people come into my office worried about how they will feed their children with disabilities. The talks of medicaid/social security cuts won’t just effect people who have worked their whole lives and had opportunity to save for their retirement, but also for these folks. They already receive no dental or vision coverage through medicaid, get social security benefits of $700 and are asked to foot the bill when medical emergencies arise, all the while not being allowed to accrue asset over $2000 at any one time or they risk losing everything they have. A program that actually discourages people from working as income will jeopardize needs for basic health care.

I understand that a venting email sent to a radio show in a small town can’t remedy this situation, but I just want people who vote to understand what is at stake. People seem to assume that these invisible people are cared for. We are becoming less and less able to guarantee basic human rights to the most vulnerable individuals in our society.

Thank you,

Anna

Tonight:

Logan’s Development Director Jay Nielsen is retiring.  As part of his final contributions, Logan is drafting a new planning policy.  It’s a bit of a hybrid of “Use-based,” and “Form-based,” type of zoning (call it “Place-based,” and you can download the draft here).  We’ll discuss the new plan, it’s goals, and take your feedback on the changes.

We’ll welcome Winter Inversions and Chevron Oil Spills back.  This time, the spill wasn’t as bad, and the inversions haven’t hit full force just yet, but is it time Utah get serious about our air quality, and upgrade our environmental policy?

With Harry Caines in as guest-host, we’ll embark on a (Meta) debate over states rights issues.  Repealing the 17th, Rob Bishop’s constitutional amendments, the Tea Party rhetoric, and Orrin Hatch’s “I’m Not Bob Bennett I Promise!” antics.

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Tonight:

Joined in studio by guest host Harry Caines, filling in for Mr. Reis who’s been relegated to the morning shows for a bit.

You thought the War on Christmas was over, didn’t you.  We’ll you’re wrong wrong wrong.

Rep. Rob Bishop has proposed a constitutional amendment to allow states to vote their way out of federal legislation they don’t like.  10th Amendment triumph, or gigantic mess waiting to happen?  We’ll ask you.

Salon has been polling readers on 2010′s Biggest (Political) Hacks.  The results (not) surprising, but great to discuss.

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