UtahOwl's blog

to paraphrase Tom Caine..."These are the times that try men's souls. The electioneering soldier and the lapel-pin patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country."

The polidiots are proposing a summer gas-tax holiday to appeal to the electorate. Yes, gas prices have risen to hurtful levels. Why not give us a break on gas taxes?

Well,the current uptick in oil prices doesn't reflect a tight supply - it reflects speculation triggered by the news from Nigeria & Britain on temporary supply problems (pipeline attack, strike). However, given a gas-tax decrease, people will then drive more this summer, and this increased demand will guarantee even worse prices come fall(or post-election...since we could expect any tax holiday to extend through election day in November).

Gretchen Morgenson

Two entrepreneurs have devised a Web site that helps consumers protect themselves from excessive fees and hidden relationships that can drive up the costs of buying a home. The site is www.FeeDisclosure.com. By giving borrowers a way to compare early on what they will probably pay for a mortgage in commissions, points, interest rates and fees, the founders of FeeDisclosure.com hope to bring transparency to what is not only a mind-numbing process but also the biggest financial commitment a consumer typically makes....

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Conservatives have steadfastly blocked any attempt to hold accountable Wall Street's major investment banks and blue-chip brokerage houses for corrupt market practices. They ignore the evidence that these firms have repeatedly abused the trust of investors by deceiving them about the value of investments and placing their own profits above the interests of investors (think Drexel- Milliken junk bond scam; Savings-and-Loan debacle; tech-stock bubble of the 1990s; today’s subprime disaster). Ben Stein says Wall Street corruption threatens free-market capitalism itself:

Without trust, there can be no free-market capitalism. [Fiduciary duty] standards of care required that those handling someone else's money behave with extreme rigor and honesty. Trustees always had to behave with the interests of the trustor [investor] uppermost. In the United States, the trustee had to disclose every fact or belief that might influence an intelligent, reasonable investor. But by the 1980s, the laws of fiduciary duty started to break down in a major way. Basically, a crossroads was passed in the Drexel-Millikan scandals. Although hundreds and perhaps thousands of men and women were profiting from misconduct, only a few went to prison. Today, in the midst of the mortgage mess, we see people breaching their fiduciary duty and getting away with it, while the ordinary stockholders are pauperized because of the losses. We surely cannot remain a republic under law if there is no law except the axiom from Richard II that "they well deserve to have, that know the strong'st and surest way to get."

A veritable mailstorm of flyers is arriving on my doorstep from proponents and opponents of Referendum One. So far, this is what I've concluded about the conflicting claims:

What is the average private school tuition – the $8000 claimed by opponents or the $4000 claimed by proponents?

Most of the difference appears to come from whether you use figures for Gr.1-12, or whether you use figures for just elementary school. The opponents are using Gr. 1-12 data. The proponents are using elementary-grade data, although I haven’t yet determined just which grades are included. Tuition at private schools usually rises substantially with grade level, so calculating from different data accounts for most of the $4000 disparity.

I'm starting with Joe Biden, Senator from Delaware - because Delaware is the First State & because I was born in Claymont DE (where Biden moved when he was 10) & know his background better than the others. Biden has served in the US Senate through 7 presidencies, the end of the Vietnam War, the Iran hostage crisis, and the fall of the Soviet Union. He is current chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Biden has been a hardworking Senator who has displayed the capacity to learn from his mistakes (remember the Clarence Thomas hearings?) and - GASP- actually admits to making them. Two takehomes that impressed me from Joe Biden's interview on OnPoint radio :

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The Human Security Brief 2006" confirms that when we act together, we can make changes in the state of the world:

The post–Cold War decline in armed conflicts reported in Human Security Report 2005 has continued, says the new study. The 2005 Report argued that the decline could be attributed in large part to an upsurge in international activism, spearheaded by the UN, that sought to stop ongoing wars, help negotiate peace settlements, support post–conflict reconstruction, and prevent old wars from starting again...

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today in the Deseret News. It even seems to have picked up an Opinion Comment - at least, John Florez pinched June's original letter title, "The Real Deal." But hey - see, we CAN get a voice. June wrote hers to get rid of serious rage at the Lege antics last week.

The Utah Legislature session begins next week. There is an even bigger record surplus this year than last year. However, prudence calls to mind the Biblical story of seven fat years, followed by seven lean years. Budget surpluses can be used to restore balance to the state budget and repair damage done in the lean years. The large surplus also creates a climate in which tax reform can occur. Keep a close eye on those boring committees dealing with Revenue and Taxation, folks!

From the I-net:

New Element on Periodic Table

A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named "Bushcronium." Bushcronium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311. These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

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Sent to Deseret News Readers Forum, not published:

I am truly sick of the debasement of political discourse in this state and this country. The past week I've heard Dick Cheney say that Connecticut voters who supported Lamont's antiwar campaign in the Democratic primary were giving "the Al Qaeda types" exactly what they wanted, and that the Democratic Party now stands for a wholesale retreat in the broader campaign against terror. Now our own Sen. Orrin Hatch is saying Middle East terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."

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