Montana is a Small Town with Long Streets
If you hadn’t heard already, I’ve accepted a position in San Antonio, and will be moving there by the end of next month.
So, after 12 years of owning this domain, I think it may be time to let it expire this fall.
I will still be keeping my personal domain, and will move the Dextra Feed to that location. I will keep you posted as to what you will need to do.
We may be moving to Texas, but our hearts are, and always will be, here in Montana.
Eldest Child is joining me to raise money for Special Olympics and we are both doing the Passion Plunge.
If you have a dollar or two to spare, you can pledge here.
Anything helps, and everything is appreciated.
See ya in ’11.
(Hopefully sooner, but you know how it is.)
To wit: Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed.
Or, as you may know it better, “An object at rest tends to stay at rest, and an object in motion tends to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force.”
Inertia has kept this site going for almost 7 years, but outside forces are now starting to exceed that inertia, and it is becoming a body at rest. And until outside forces change, or start pushing another direction, this object will probably stay at rest.
But, then again, this has been fairly apparent for the last 18 months or so, this is just to kind of make it semi-official.
So, until the net force upon this object at rest changes, I leave you with this:
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude than the animating contest of freedom, — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen!”
To former Montana First Lady Betty Babcock, who is blogging at 1st Lady Insights.
Somehow, Doug beat me to the punch on my own bleg, but for those of you who are interested in “Frozen Sprouts,” I am participating in the Polar Plunge for Special Olympics here in Montana.
If you have a dollar or two to spare, you can pledge here.
Anything helps, and everything is appreciated.
As if 900,000 bosses cried out in unison and said, “FAIL”
Let’s face facts gang, if any one of Max’s 900,000 bosses had “forgotten” to pay taxes, the IRS would have all their assets, and they would be in prison.
But if it’s someone who’s the next SecTreas?
“I believe that these errors, although serious, do not rise to the level of disqualification,” committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., told reporters.
I wonder if I quit paying taxes for the next 3 years if I can call upon Max to say, “Craig’s errors, though serious, do not rise to the level of prison terms.”
Absurd. Utterly absurd.
I guess I don’t have really strong feelings about the bill, or same-day registration except for this: Proponents of same-day talk about the importance of the right to vote, and I agree wholeheartedly. However, with that right comes responsibility.
How can you look me in the eye and tell me you think your right to vote is important, and yet you don’t have the time to register beforehand? It doesn’t cost anything except time – and if it’s not worth your time, then how can you say it’s important?
“It would disenfranchise [insert group here]”. Baloney. Same day voting is a product of the instant-gratification society we’ve become. If it’s applied equally, then it will impact equally. I’m no more disenfranchised by a lack of same-day voting than anyone else.
“Some folks think they’re registered when they’re not.” Odds are that’s because they didn’t choose to exercise their right to vote in a previous Presidential election, and the County election officials correctly deduced that if it wasn’t important enough for them to vote for the leader of the free world, then they probably don’t want to be on the list.
In the instance that you were incorrectly purged, take some personal responsibility [there’s that pesky word again] and make sure you’re registered. You get a nifty voter registration card, too. That’s a pretty good sign that you’re registered. Don’t have one? Maybe you’d better check to see if you really are registered. Again, it doesn’t cost anything to find out except for time.
I guess I’m frustrated by the folks who talk about how important this is, yet they don’t behave like it’s that important. It’s enabled by the well-intentioned folks who want to make sure that everyone who wants to vote, so they provide tools for the lazy and uninterested to take part in something they really don’t care about; then raise the specter of disenfranchisement when those tools are challenged.
Allowing for some hyperbole, what’s next? Next-day voting for folks who forgot, or just couldn’t get out of work? Extend it a week? Maybe year-round voting, and we just keep going until the results are what we want?
Voting is a critical right – people die for the right to do what we take for granted. If you don’t take it seriously enough to exercise the responsibility of looking to see if you’re even registered – what business do you have voting in the first place?
I heard an excerpt from this speech given by Senator Jon Tester yesterday.
It’s not in the story, but when you hear the full version of this paragraph,
Tester also thanked the families, friends, and communities of outgoing National Guard troops. He noted that when 229 men and women answer the call of duty in a state like Montana, “it impacts a great deal of the state.”
when he talks about a state like Montana, he refers to it as a “small town with very long streets.”
I’m rather fond of that turn of phrase, myself.
What can I say? It made my morning.
So, if the codified union thuggery, known as the Employee Free Choice Act [ . . . ]
Pardon the interruption, but I’d be hard pressed to find another bill that is any more misnamed than this one. From now on, I’m going to refer to it as the Slavery Is Choice Act.
[ . . . ] actually passes, and you, as an employee are no longer entitled to the fundamental democratic right of a secret ballot, I wonder:
How does this square with the state constitution which has a defined Right of Privacy?
Section 10. Right of privacy. The right of individual privacy is essential to the well-being of a free society and shall not be infringed without the showing of a compelling state interest. (Emphasis mine. OK, it’s the whole thing, but that’s some pretty clear language right there, if you ask me. –Ed.)
Seems like EFCA and the Montana Constitution are pretty much incompatible.
I’ll bet that the Montana (or PA) sinestra suddenly loses interest in the Montana Constitution. What say you?
On the way home, I had the local radio station1 on, and was listening to the afternoon news.
They had a fluff piece about Senator Baucus, and his starting his 8,423rd year in the Senate.
The thing that made me laugh was how he talked about his job being the best in the world, representing Montana, and how he had 900,000 of the best bosses in the world.
I couldn’t help but think of my own (admittedly cynical) view that the best bosses in the world are the ones you never see.
So, in that respect, I guess he’s right. I mean not owning property in Montana, and not living here for 30 years means that you never get to see your boss. And, as far as bosses go, that’s a Good Thing™. Am I right? Or am I right?
As I’m seeing more and more people take to things like blogs, Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc., I’m also seeing a lot of self-proclaimed “social media experts.” When you check up on them, it looks like they’ve had a blog for all of 18 months and a Facebook and MySpace page, and not much else.
So, having had this blog for 6 1/2 years, I figure that I am as much of an expert as anyone, and I am now going to share with you, dear reader, the lessons I have learned in becoming a social media person of note.
BLOGS
ALL
For all of these, you can follow the no-nonsense rule of proclaiming yourself to be an expert in that field, and demand that everyone follow the etiquette that you deem appropriate — regardless of what everyone else is doing.
There you go; a recipe for sure-fire success in today’s dog-eat-dog world of this thing we call “Web 2.0 (Beta).”
You can thank me later.
Really I only point out this story over at Left in Western PA to point out the irony of someone chastising a private college for a supposed First Amendment violation.
For review, the first five words of the First Amendment are: “Congress shall make no law”.
Can you find the relevant word in those five?
Carroll College is a private Catholic institution, and can impose whatever standards it pleases, even if they (gasp) promote the teachings of the Catholic Church.
They have the Constitution on the intarwebs now. Shouldn’t be too hard to brush up, don’t you think?
First, I’ll thank Craig for letting me guest post on the venerable MTPolitics.
The 61st Montana Legislature hadn’t even convened before the hyperventilating started by some of the regulars over at Left in the West.
They want to make the Government force you to stay married. Even if–say–your spouse used your family’s entire life savings to fuel his/her gambling or drug addition and you don’t have any money left to feed your children–even if your spouse is cheating on you or even beating on you, you can’t get a divorce.
No, you still have to go through a government mandated counseling period and a cooling off period for a couple of years (whereby the spouse can still hit your kids, drain your bank-account, kill your pets, etc.)
Sounds horrible, right? I’d have to agree with poster Montana Cowgirl that this would be atrocious legislation worthy of fighting against. When I went to the supporting links for the two suspect pieces of legislation [here and here] I noticed they were still in bill draft (which means Cowgirl had no actual legislation on which to base her attack) – so I looked around to see what I could find about similar attempts elsewhere.
Wikipedia’s accuracy notwithstanding, when I looked into ‘covenant marriages’ I found a concise summary. I also found data on the three states that currently offer covenant marriages as well as one version of the ‘boilerplate’ legislation so we can see what proponents want in their dream bill.
The glaring omission in the breathless hyperbole in the aforementioned post and majority of subsequent comments is this. Covenant marriage is optional. Nobody is forced into this matrimonial bond. Even if a couple were to make this commitment, they could change their mind and get divorced elsewhere – and nowhere could I find evidence that the legislation prevented abused spouses from getting out of that tragic (and often deadly) situation.
Now, before you make the leap and assume I support legislation like this – I’ll make this perfectly clear. I am devout in my faith, but what that is and how I practice it is my business. If you want to know more about it, I’ll likely share – but I’m not going to wear it on my sleeve because I know there are numerous ways to have faith (or for some, not have faith). To each, their own I guess.
Marriage is what bwings us togever er, I mean, I consider marriage to be a religious construct. In the eyes of the government, I personally believe it should be a lawfully recognized civil union between two consenting adults and blind to the parallel religious overtones. As indicated by some of the proponents of covenant marriage, it is a deeply religious movement of the evangelical judeo-christians – and that’s fine. Believe whatever you want. Legislating it, however, lends legitimacy to claims of a violation of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution specifically the “or prohibiting the free exercise thereof” part. If I don’t believe the same way these proponents at The Covenant Marriage Movement, I’m free to do so – and it is a violation of my rights to force me otherwise.
The road to Hell is paved with good intentions, and while I’m all for strong marriages – and those who choose to try to salvage a rocky one with some of the methods suggested by the covenant folks – more power to you. However, it would be wise to take a good strong look at the U.S. Constitution before one starts drafting legislation (ANY legislation, I might add). I can only hope that our current crop of legislators do exactly that.
I’ll withhold judgment on these particular bills until the drafts are actually written (unlike some others ahem). I would encourage others to do the same and to avoid creating bogeymen. Attack the basis of the legislation, not some hyperbolic worse-than-worst-case scenario. Especially if it’s optional.
Just one man’s opinion.
Note: the opinion expressed in this post does not necessarily reflect the views of the owner of this blog, but I’ll bet I’m not too far afield. If I am, he’ll let me know in the comments. Thanks for the guest mic, Craig.
So, yesterday in Helena it was a balmy 13 degrees (Fahrenheit) at our house.
Today, it rose into the 40′s.
Today was also the first day that the legislature convened.
I find it hard to believe that the two are unrelated.
