Is the city supposed to clear its sidewalks? Or just the residents?

I think I've seen a requirement for residents in our city (Upper Arlington, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus) to clear their side walks after a snow storm. We haven't had the snow that the northeast or west of Chicago have had, but we get 2-3 inches from time to time. Today I noticed that when driving west on McCoy Road, all the sidewalks on the south (residential) were clear, and all the sidewalks on the north (Thompson Park) were icy and snow covered and dangerous, because that's where people go to walk.

DISCO? No thanks

"Debra Moddelmog is a professor in the Department of English [at Ohio State University"]. She specializes in 20th century American literature, sexuality studies and intersectionality studies and is director of Diversity and Identity Studies Collective at OSU (DISCO). . . .She has organized and successfully carried out a new interdisciplinary minor in Sexuality Studies at Ohio State. Her work on diversity has had a significant impact on the Ohio State humanities curriculum."

There's a place for everyone (as a department head) at OSU.

Review & Outlook: After You, Mr. Ryan - WSJ.com

Yes, let some adults try to clean up the spending, taxing, waffling mess. "Amid his Reaganite sunshine and new admiration for the wonders of private enterprise, President Obama's political message in Tuesday's State of the Union address boils down to this: Republicans, it's your budget problem now."

Review & Outlook: After You, Mr. Ryan - WSJ.com

Richard Dreyfus is unhappy with Obama

Will a Hollywood liberal be called a racist?

When conservatives realized he was just another bag of hot leftist air, they were called racists. So, now that the left realizes he's just another statist influenced by money and lobbyists and concern for his own reputation, are they racists too? Or is there actually something more important about this man than the fact his father was from Kenya?

Community engagement--what is it?

At OSUToday I noticed a grant announcement for "community engagement."

Community Engagement RFA Deadline April 15

"Ohio State's Center for Clinical and Translational Science and the West Virginia Clinical Translational Science Institute Community Engagement and Research Program are jointly sponsoring a pilot research award designed to stimulate collaboration between the respective campuses as well as increase community engaged research, including community-based participatory research, in the Appalachian region."

So I started looking around--and what I found was a mountain of fuzzy definitions building in 2007 and 2008 which included words like "community concerns," "working collaboratively," "engage communities," "partnered and participatory research," and one definition even said "community engagement is not scholarship." On another site I found OSU's definition:

“Engagement is defined as a meaningful and mutually beneficial collaboration with partners in education, business, and public and social service. It involves using:

That aspect of teaching that enables learning beyond the campus walls;
That aspect of research that makes what we discover useful beyond the academic community; and
That aspect of service that directly benefits the public.”

So, based on OSU's definition, it's a way for faculty to complete teaching, research and service requirements without being in the classroom while receiving a federal or foundation grant, and also, if you Google "community engagement Alinsky" it's community organizing under another name (aka ACORN). Notice how Alinsky has been sanitized. It's a way to co-opt established groups that have had a long time mission to educate, feed, clothe and minister to people, and bring them into the government fold. Like churches, service organizations and non-profits.

Some definitions on the internet were so vague, even about the word "community," you really could use this grant money to research middle age Roman Catholic men who gather at Panera's for Bible study, or a condo association that wants the golf course to rip rap its side of the creek, or elementary students who want to play ball in the streets. The grants are quite toothsome.

Computer virus problems

I'm really out of commission here. I'm using an old computer xp I had in the basement. I picked up a virus disguised as a microsoft scan, so don't ever say yes to an offer to scan for viruses, even if it says it's microsoft. Don't know that I could have stopped it, but after being "cleaned" by a computer repairman, it reappeared and now the whole thing is fried.

CNN puts women in its crosshairs

According to Byron York, before CNN reporter John King had his horrified (and horrifying) mental breakdown on the air apologizing for another reporter's use of the word crosshairs (Chicago mayoral race being disucssed by Andy Shaw), CNN had been guilty a number of times of putting events and people in its crosshairs, particularly Sarah Palin and Michelle Bachmann. He lists them here:

A look at transcripts of CNN programs in the month leading up to the shootings shows that the network was filled with references to "crosshairs" -- and once even used the term to suggest the targeting of Palin herself. Some examples:

"Palin's moose-hunting episode on her reality show enraged People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, and now, she's square in the crosshairs of big time Hollywood producer, Aaron Sorkin," reported A.J. Hammer of CNN's Headline News on December 8.

"Companies like MasterCard are in the crosshairs for cutting ties with WikiLeaks," said CNN Kiran Chetry in a December 9 report.

"Thousands of people living in areas that are in the crosshairs have been told to evacuate," Chetry said in a December 21 report on flooding in California.

"He's in their crosshairs," said a guest in a December 21 CNN discussion of suspects in a missing-person case.

"This will be the first time your food will be actually in the crosshairs of the FDA," business reporter Christine Romans said on December 22.

"The U.S. commander in the East has Haqqani in his crosshairs," CNN's Barbara Starr reported on December 28, referring to an Afghan warlord.

"We know that health care reform is in the crosshairs again," CNN's Joe Johns reported on January 3.

Seven uses of "crosshairs" in just the month before the Tucson attacks, and just one of them referring to an actual wartime situation. And one reference to Sarah Palin herself as being in "crosshairs."

And not just Palin. On September 14, Mark Preston, CNN's senior political editor, referred to another controversial politician, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann, as being "in the crosshairs." "Michelle Bachmann is raising lots of money, raising her national profile," Preston said on September 14. "She is in the crosshairs of Democrats as well."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2011/01/banning-crosshairs-cnn-used-it-refer-palin-bachmann#ixzz1Bcbm5FlM

A list of proposed budget cuts

Here's a few of my favorites:

"Stimulus" Repeal: Eliminate all remaining "stimulus" funding. $45 billion total savings

Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings. (ACORN type groups?)

Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings.

Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings

Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually

Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings. With the punishment or fines the rest of us would get.

And so forth. Quite a list.

The Pitty Pat Papers: ACTION!!! At last!!

Tennessee Democrat stands by Nazi remarks

So much for the Democrats lowering the volume and being more civil. Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN) has used the N-word, Nazi, to describe Republicans' repeal of the health care fiasco, and by implication, all of us who thought it was terrible that it got passed before it was read. All of us who went to the polls in November and exercised our right to vote to change it.

Mr. Cohen, shame on you! You guys railroad this disaster through, admit you haven't read it and have no idea what it will cost in the long run, and then call the victims of your plot, Nazis (national socialists). Now if some demented, apolitical man fires a gun into a crowd or drives his car into the window of a fast food restaurant, or flies his plane into a government building, we'll know who to blame.

Tennessee Democrat stands by Nazi remarks - Bloomberg

But he was taken out of context? Sounds like he's called us Nazis to me.
"They say it's a government takeover of health care, a big lie just like Goebbels. . . . You say it enough, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie, you repeat the lie and eventually, people believe it. Like blood libel. That's the same kind of thing. . . . The Germans said enough about the Jews and the people believed it and you had the Holocaust. You tell a lie over and over again. And we've heard on this floor, government takeover of health care."

According to Glenn Beck (and biographers), Goebbels got his methods from Edward Bernays, The father of Spin, who later changed the word "propaganda" to "public relations."

"During Bernays' lifetime and since, propaganda has usually had dirty connotations, loaded and identified with the evils of Nazi PR genius Joseph Goebbels, or the oafish efforts of the Soviet Communists. In his memoirs, Bernays wrote that he was "shocked" to discover that Goebbels kept copies of Bernays' writings in his own personal library, and that his theories were therefore helping to "engineer" the rise of the Third Reich."

President George W. Bush, $50 million to fight human trafficking (slavery), Sept. 23, 2003, before the U.N.

There's another humanitarian crisis spreading, yet hidden from view. Each year, an estimated 800,000 to 900,000 human beings are bought, sold or forced across the world's borders. Among them are hundreds of thousands of teenage girls, and others as young as five, who fall victim to the sex trade. This commerce in human life generates billions of dollars each year -- much of which is used to finance organized crime.

There's a special evil in the abuse and exploitation of the most innocent and vulnerable. The victims of sex trade see little of life before they see the very worst of life -- an underground of brutality and lonely fear. Those who create these victims and profit from their suffering must be severely punished. Those who patronize this industry debase themselves and deepen the misery of others. And governments that tolerate this trade are tolerating a form of slavery.

This problem has appeared in my own country, and we are working to stop it. The PROTECT Act, which I signed into law this year, makes it a crime for any person to enter the United States, or for any citizen to travel abroad, for the purpose of sex tourism involving children. The Department of Justice is actively investigating sex tour operators and patrons, who can face up to 30 years in prison. Under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, the United States is using sanctions against governments to discourage human trafficking.

The victims of this industry also need help from members of the United Nations. And this begins with clear standards and the certainty of punishment under laws of every country. Today, some nations make it a crime to sexually abuse children abroad. Such conduct should be a crime in all nations. Governments should inform travelers of the harm this industry does, and the severe punishments that will fall on its patrons. The American government is committing $50 million [I think this was domestic; another site reported $295 million internationally] to support the good work of organizations that are rescuing women and children from exploitation, and giving them shelter and medical treatment and the hope of a new life. I urge other governments to do their part.

We must show new energy in fighting back an old evil. Nearly two centuries after the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade, and more than a century after slavery was officially ended in its last strongholds, the trade in human beings for any purpose must not be allowed to thrive in our time.

--------------

The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (TVPA) (Public Law 106-386) was first enacted in October 2000, reauthorized in 2003, and President Barack Obama proclaimed January National Slavery and Human Trafficking Prevention Month. But you'll see a shift, gradually, to emphasizing labor and other types of human rights abusesinstead of saving sex workers and children from a life of slavery. Notice the word order in Obama's speech: "Human trafficking is a global travesty that takes many forms. Whether forced labor or sexual trafficking, child soldiering or involuntary domestic servitude, these abuses are an affront to our national conscience, and to our values as Americans and human beings."

At Homeland Security, it's called The Blue Campaign, don't know why. Sounds a bit political, sort of like distributing blue t-shirts at the Tucson memorial for murdered citizens. Lots of PR, pamphlets and cards.

Because feminists write on this issue, they generally hated President Bush despite what he did for women, their examination of the 2000 Human trafficking act, the 2003 Operation Predator and PROTECT act, and their enforcement are generally seen as a failure. Link. However, if you read through these link, both the problem and the progress is amazing.

Barack Obama--News source

Based on the art work of the site, this collection of news articles with little or no editorial comment puzzles me. It's definitely Soviet style realism familiar to anyone exposed to 20th century art propaganda; you could paste in Lenin with St. Petersburg in the background with no effort and get the subliminal message. But we have many admirers of Marxist state communism and state socialism among us under the banner of Progressive. So are the creators of this website for Obama or against him? Do news stories, which always have an editorial slant, really tell a story without explanation or have they been selected to reveal a bigger story with headline creation? I think after reviewing the headlines, it's a pro-Obama site. Use of "anti-abortion" instead of "pro-life," for instance. "Repeal health care" instead of "repeal health care bill." It's the little things in love and politics that matter.

The tags appear to be created by robots, not people. That's untidy. Really can put a librarian's teeth on edge. I think a conservative website would be more careful.

Barack Obama

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: We Just Witnessed The Media's Test Run To Re-Elect Barack Obama

The smearing of Palin over the Giffords shooting. There's a bigger issue.

"It does not matter whether you support Palin for President, whether you think she is electable, or even whether you like her. This is not about Palin, it is about the mainstream media's desire to have Barack Obama re-elected at any cost and to take down any Republican candidate who stands in the way."

Le·gal In·sur·rec·tion: We Just Witnessed The Media's Test Run To Re-Elect Barack Obama

"Barack Obama is already gearing up for the 2012 election, with a report last week that his campaign will be headquartered in Chicago. Don't be surprised if he sticks with the theme of "change," which at first glance makes no sense coming from an incumbent. But it makes perfect sense when one realizes that the change he champions was never simply from Bush to himself or from a Republican to a Democrat. No, President Obama seeks fundamental change -- transformation -- from core American principles, like free enterprise, self-reliance, sovereignty and liberty, toward socialism "in the name of economic fairness.""
American Thinker: The Stealthy Spread of Socialism in the U.S.

For starters, Jared Loughner was male

“Boys, compared to girls, are 6 times more likely to have learning disabilities, 3 times more likely to be registered drug addicts, and 4 times more likely to be diagnosed as emotionally disturbed. Boys are at greater risk for schizophrenia, sexual addiction, alcoholism, and all forms of antisocial and criminal behavior. They are 12 times more likely to murder someone, and their rate of death in car accidents is greater by 50%.”

New Man, May/June 2003, p. 16

Federal grand jury indicts Loughner in Giffords shooting

Snapshot of a Culture of Death

Dr. Kermit Gosnell, who made millions as an abortionist, “induced labor, forced the live birth of viable babies in the sixth, seventh, eighth month of pregnancy and then killed those babies by cutting into the back of the neck with scissors and severing their spinal cord.” Nine employees were also charged. He kept body parts in jars for no apparent reason.

Snapshot of a Culture of Death - By Kathryn Jean Lopez - The Corner - National Review Online

Yes, that sounds gross, but it's not far removed from a case here in Columbus where a father killed his 3 month old by dragging him on the street after he'd abused him. There's only 4 months difference between an 8th month fetus and a 3 month old baby. One is called abortion, the other murder. Both babies were helpless without adult protection. Neither can survive on his own.

How far will the Democrats go in looking foolish?

In an early concession to Democrats looking for a battle, the Republicans have decided to change the name of the Jobs Killing Bill to something less violent, like Jobs Crushing Bill. Why not just call it what it is, The bill to save American health care. Is that too long? Or how about this. Repeal Obamacare Bill. This looking for violence under every rock by Rep. James Clyburn is going to backfire, ah, misfire, uh, come back to haunt him. We're in for more turgid, bombastic, mendacious, unctuous, jejune, inchoate language than usual as our senators and congresspeople struggle for just the exact word while avoiding long used (but violent) verbs and idioms:
Shoot yourself in the foot
shoot down
Blow your top
blow up
In the cross hairs
crossfire
target
aim
Straight arrow
butcher
mangle the language
hang dog look
blood red
Gore
blood brothers
strangle
discharge
choke
strangle
die
death
murder
mow down
assassinate
wound
double barrel
trigger
sacrifice

More as I think of them.

The next list of smack downs, again criticizing the right, will be all the words that have been used to describe Loughner. Everything from crazy to nut job to nut case. I think many of those cruel terms (and I probably used a few of my own) were over the top, in part because he is a victim of his own disturbed thoughts over which he had not control. And he's a victim of a type of social protection. But the sheriff's office did know about his obsession with Giffords (according to Dupnik) and she should have had protection.

Tucson shooter obsessed with bizarre Internet movie Zeitgeist.

Byron York examines Loughner's obsession with a movie. "Zeitgeist" has three parts. The first tells us that Christianity is a myth, and that religion in general conditions us to believe other myths. The second tells us that the most powerful of those other myths is 9/11 -- we call it an act of terrorism when it fact it was an inside job perpetrated by the U.S. government. And the third part tells us the real powers behind 9/11 and the other myths are central bankers. They're making the myths for money, while we're just being duped."

Tucson shooter obsessed with bizarre Internet movie | Byron York | Politics | Washington Examiner

But if it hadn't been this movie, it would have been shadows on the wall, or the way his English teacher looked at him, or a girl who dumped him. Whatever, it sure wasn't Sarah Palin.

And Lee Siegel on movies in general (on government): "According to news reports, Loughner went to one of Congresswoman Giffords' public meetings and asked her this question: "What is government if words have no meaning?" It also appears in his YouTube video. In the light of what later happened, the question chills us. Its nihilism and its unbalanced lack of basic trust are haunting. Yet they are also the stuff, not just of right-wing suspicion of government, or of radical left-wing suspicion of same, but of scores of Hollywood movies, from Taxi Driver and Three Days of the Condor, to Guilty by Suspicion and Mercury Rising, to The Sentinel and Syriana, and, well, I can't keep up. For at least half a century, our movies, from simple to complex, have been driven by the idea that official words have no meaning and that government is either criminal or a sham."

American Nihilism | The New York Observer

Blackburn: Net neutrality is 'Fairness Doctrine for the Internet'

From the Hill: Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) spoke against net neutrality regulations today (Jan. 18) at an event put on by the Safe Internet Alliance. Representing the songwriters, singers, actors, producers and other entertainers in Memphis and Nashville, she said the creative community does not want the federal government to interfere with how they are able to get content to consumers via the Internet.

"Net neutrality, as I see it, is the fairness doctrine for the Internet," she said. The creators "fully understand what the Fairness Doctrine would be when it applies to TV or radio. What they do not want is the federal government policing how they deploy their content over the Internet and they want the ISPs to manage their networks and deploy the content however they have agreed on with ISP. They do not want a czar of the Internet to determine when they can deploy their creativity over the Internet. "They do not want a czar to determine what speeds will be available....We are watching the FCC very closely as it relates to that issue."

Blackburn: Net neutrality is 'Fairness Doctrine for the Internet' - The Hill's Hillicon Valley

And not surprisingly, Susan Crawford, a former special assistant to President Obama for technology policy, and favors strong regulations on tech issues. She wrote an op-ed for the NYT favoring regulation and needs to be watched closely.

One hundred per cent fatality, but other than that . . . it's a success

According to Guttmacher Institute, the research arm of Planned Parenthood, abortions performed in the first trimester pose virtually no long-term risk of such problems as infertility, ectopic pregnancy, spontaneous abortion (miscarriage) or birth defect, and little or no risk of preterm or low-birth-weight deliveries. For the tiny life in the womb, however, there is a 100% fatality rate (1,210,000 deaths by abortion in 2008, 88% in the first trimester).

Guttmacher supplies many, many statistics, mostly in percentages, not numbers. Federal-state Medicaid spent $1.3 billion for family planning services in FY 2006 for 9 million women, of which the federal government pays 90% of the cost, and the states pay 10%. Most of this is for contraception. 54% of the women having abortions report using contraceptives and 46% hadn't. So something isn't working--maybe all that money is going for office space, staffing,bureaucrats and grants to Guttmacher and Planned Parenthood (which gets the biggest piece of the pie)?

Alan E. Guttmacher, nephew to Alan F. Guttmacher, a former vice president of the American Eugenics Society for whom the above is named, assumed the duties of National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) first as acting director, then director on August 1, 2010. President Barack Obama's position on abortion is the most anti-life of any member of Congress or President of the United States in the history of this country. The National Abortion Rights Action League (NARAL) gives Obama a 100% score on his pro-choice voting record in the Senate for 2005, 2006, and 2007.

The herd of sacred cows will continue to graze if. . .

This herd of sacred cows has doubled in size in two years, from Bush cows to Obama cows.
Alan Simpson said that on Fox News last night. He's one of Obama's chairs of the Deficit Commission. It's short enough that one could actually read it, unlike the massive health care bill of over 2,000 pages. However, it's not terribly believable. If both parties have contibuted to the deficit, having a bipartisan (both parties) commission look at spending makes little sense. I think the American people should look at the spending so they aren't just moving money from the wallet to the pocket and calling it "savings," like shifting inefficient federal health costs to even worse state health costs.

I've only been a Republican for a decade, but since they seem to be the same party I registered with in the 1960s I see some problems. Republicans talk small government and fiscal responsibility, but once inside the beltway they become first RINOs, then progressives, then socialists, feeding at the public trough, schmoozing with the lobbiests, and playing games. Huey Long in the 1930s, an opponent of Roosevelt, wrote a pamphlet called Share Our Wealth, and his stealth theft of wealth is indistinguishable from today's government, regardless of which party is in power.

So I challenge you, liberal or conservative to find an agency, commission, program, department, task force, Congressional office, government GSE or think tank, and find a section of its budget and take it apart, piece by piece. Find the pork or the graft if it's coming to your city or state and you don't want it to die permanently, or decide why the entire thing is a scam if you can handle a really sharp knife. Or, you could do it by topic--like poverty, education, housing, health, or job training and dig out the waste as it resides in multiple departments like Education, Energy, Health.

Or, you could do it by non-profit status or by religion. How much are Lutherans or Methodists or Catholics or fair-housing groups and trade associations getting from government grants instead of their members, and are they then able to meet their original mission statement or do they have to be gradually silenced? Has Jesus' command in Matthew changed from "Therefore go, . . . because I said so" to "Therefore NO, . . . because the government says so."

Does the government need to still be offering zero percent down home mortgages? You can get one through the USDA. Did we learn nothing from the last three years? The USDA is right up there with HHS as the biggest spender of pork in government--it's in everything from day care to home mortgages. So citizens, let's call this pulled pork and see what we find, then pass it along to your Congressional representative.
------------------
Update: Here's one from the Department of Energy someone could look at. The DOE's Weatherization Assistance Program (WAP) was created in 1976 to assist low-income families who lacked resources to invest in energy efficiency. You would think that after 35 years, most low income homes would be insulated or have window replacements, but apparently not because $5 billion of ARRA money was dumped in their lap after an annual allocation of around $225 million. Imagine the frantic hiring and and equipment buying and ordering supplies hastily that must have put in motion! Although I didn’t find the cost, one of the grants was for a webinar for a nonprofit (NASCSP) to teach its members how to use social media and blogging to sign people up to use this money. And to think I started 12 blogs with no government or any start up costs.

Update 2: Rusty suggests: Well, that'll be easy as the Dept of Energy was the first I was going to eliminate all together. It has done nothing over the last 30? years. Next I would eliminate all agricultural subsidies. How much sense does it make to pay for a farmer NOT to plant something. Or pay them to plant corn for ethanol. Without a subsidy, fuel WITH ethanol would cost more than gas without. Then federal lands, that are leased to cattle operations in the West, need to be rented at rates that reflect prices for comparable non-federal lands. And after that, the Department of Education.

Update 3: Bill says: In the UK they froze senior benefits and the military budget and then went to the other government organizations with a % they must cut. The per cents are not small, like 20 and 25%. If the department head balks or says it can't be done, the department head gets eliminated. Then Carol adds, she thinks Social Security and the military are untouchables.

Update 4:Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe: "Other 10-year Cato spending cut estimates: Scrapping the departments of Commerce and Housing and Urban Development saves $550 billion; ending farm subsidies would produce nearly $290 billion. Cutting NASA spending by 50% would save $90 billion. Repealing Davis-Bacon labor rules produces $60 billion. Ending urban mass transit grants would save $52 billion. Privatizing air traffic control, as other nations have done, saves $38 billion. Privatize Amtrak and end rail subsidies and save $31 billion. Reform federal worker retirement, $18 billion. Retire Americorps, $10 billion. Shutter the Small Business Administration, $14 billion."Dick Armey and Matt Kibbe: What Congress Should Cut - WSJ.com

Linking unemployment to Why Tucson massacre will happen again

This may be next to Sheriff Dupnik's theories in cluelessness--Brett Arends at Market Watch links unemployment of young men to gun violence and predicts Tucson type murders will happen again. He strings unrelated statistics like he was decorating a Christmas tree. I was about to look up the comment requirements, but when I looked at them, someone said exactly what I was thinking? Who in the world would have employed Loughner with his problems? He hardly fits the profile of the unemployed.

"Loughner didn't kill Rep. Giffords because he was unemployed, but because he is crazy. He would be unemployed in any event because most employers are not going to hire someone who exhibits anti-social behavior to the extent that Loughner does."

Why Tucson massacre will happen again Brett Arends' ROI - MarketWatch