Short Attention Span Musing - Numbers Edition

...First number up today - 6

6, as in 6 years, which is how long one air marshal has been having trouble catching his flight assignments, according to this Washington Times article.

The reason?

His name is on the 'no-fly' list.

And he's not the only air marshal facing this problem.

From the article -

False identifications based on a terrorist no-fly list have for years prevented some federal air marshals from boarding flights they are assigned to protect, according to officials with the agency, which is finally taking steps to address the problem.

The air marshals service response?

They issued a memo advising their employees who face this situation to contact a supervisor at the airline denying them boarding.

I have a little sympathy for the affected air marshals, but only a little. Thousands of civilians have faced this issue, with little or no recourse available to them.

Maybe now that the problem is affecting people from the same government bureaucracy that created the faulty 'no-fly' list in the first place, they'll put some real effort into straightening it out.


...Next number up for consideration - 20%.

20%, as in the reduction in Phoenix's per capita daily water usage over the last 15 years.

From the Arizona Republic article -

Water usage in Phoenix has dropped 20 percent in the past 15 years, the result of ongoing educational efforts and increased efficiency, city officials say.

According to information from the city's Water Services Department, average per capita daily usage has plunged from about 250 gallons per person per day to about 200 gallons.

Total water usage has held steady, even as the population has soared past 1.5 million people.

No snarkiness here; it seems that ongoing water conservation efforts have had a visible effect.

I would be interested in finding out the breakdown of the reduction - is it rooted in residential conservation efforts, a reduction in industrial or commercial usage, etc.

However, regardless of the area most responsible for the usage reduction, it's still encouraging news.


...Last number - 20,000.

20,000, as in the number of American jobs lost in April, the fourth consecutive month experiencing a net job loss.

From The Inquirer.net (Philippines) (emphasis mine) -

US economy shed 20,000 jobs in April

WASHINGTON -- US employers cut 20,000 jobs in April in a relatively stable showing for the US labor market as the jobless rate fell a tenth of a percentage point to 5.0 percent, the Labor Department said Friday.

And therein lies the spin - a loss of 20,000 jobs is being portrayed as good news, because it wasn't as bad as expected...

Does anybody else think that every single day this year, George Bush has thanked God that he doesn't have to try to run for reelection on his economic record? And that every day, Republican candidates across the nation look to the heavens and curse the fact that they *do* have to run on the economy?

Anyway, no "Sunday Morning Crappie" post this week - it would have gone to John McCain anyway, and I have to admit, it's getting kind of boring picking on our Johnny for his flip-flopping.

On the other hand, while I'm getting bored with McCain's pandering, Desert Beacon is not. Click here to check out her latest Sunday Morning Deck Bass award.

Have a good week!

Sunday Morning Crappie Award

I'm writing this a little early because of my work schedule, but we already have a "winner" for this week's award.

John McCain, patriot and veteran and alleged "supporter of our troops," earned consideration for this week's award for his opposition to the modern GI Bill (Senate version here; the Harry Mitchell-sponsored House version here).

Apparently "maverick" McCain is taking his direction from the Bush White House, which is fundamentally opposed to the bills because servicemen and women might choose to leave the service to take advantage of the education benefits instead of re-enlisting.

Desert Beacon's coverage of this issue here.

Coverage from The Nation, via Yahoo! News here.

However, in spite of the "reverse twisting pike" nature of his flip flop, it pales in comparison to the "inward reverse 3 1/2 somersault" special performed by this week's winner, everybody's favorite neo-anderthal and professional bigot, State Rep. Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance).

Relax, he hasn't flip-flopped on the subject of immigrants (still hates 'em), public arts funding (bury it in a mine shaft), or government in general (only reason it should exist is to put people in jail).

Nope, he's still very consistent about all of that.

What he has apparently changed his opinion of is Clean Elections.

Clean Elections is Arizona's program of voluntary public financing for candidates for statewide and legislative offices.

It's very successful - more than 60% of currently declared candidates are participating in Clean Elections so far (that number could change as new candidates enter races and announced candidates withdraw or don't gather enough signatures to get on the ballot.)

Russell Pearce, and most Republicans, hate it with a passion.

He's campaigned on the "hypocrisy" of Clean Elections, and in 2006, Pearce proposed a strike-everything amendment to a bill to get rid of Clean Elections.

So who is shown as a participating candidate on CCEC's list of 2008 candidates?

Pearce, Russell Republican State Senator - District No. 18 Participating

:))

Don't forget to check in with Desert Beacon in Nevada to find out the winner of her "Sunday Deck Bass Award."

Have a good weekend!

Sunday Morning Crappie Award (early edition)

Yes, I know that it's 4 days early, but short of George W. Bush resigning from office, giving his fortune to Amnesty International and volunteering to spend the rest of his life with Habitat for Humanity working to rebuild the Katrina-ravaged Gulf Coast, it isn't likely that anyone is going to flip-flop as much as Russell Pearce (R-National Alliance) did this week.

From AZCentral.com -

Lawmakers want to be free from voter restraints

Staring down a deficit abyss of about $3 billion for this year and next, Arizona lawmakers complain that their efforts to cut spending and balance the budget are stymied by voters.

Health care for the poor. Spending on schools. Money for clean elections and land conservation. Early-education and health programs for kids, funded by tobacco taxes. Major state programs and big bucks - all off-limits because they are protected by voter-approved initiatives.

{snip}

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, says this means that a huge chunk of budget growth, about $600 million a year, is on "auto-pilot," which makes it difficult for the Legislature to balance the budget during hard economic times. Why shouldn't voter-approved programs share the cuts?

"In bad times, tough decisions have to be made," said Pearce, who sponsored the measure, House Concurrent Resolution 2044.

{snip}

Pearce complains that what voters have protected are "the giveaway programs, the socialist programs," referring to programs like AHCCCS and First Things First.

OK, let's be clear here - Pearce wants the authority to override voters' wishes because he thinks that they (aka - us!) haven't voted wisely.

This from the same guy who has sponsored over 30 proposed referendums so that the legislature can get the worst of their worst schemes past the Governor's veto pen.

Oh, and those 30 measures aren't exactly a new trick for the old nativist dog Pearce - he sponsored or cosponsored 17 such proposals during the 2007 session of the lege, 23 during 2006, and 17 during 2005.

A goodly number of the HCRs and SCRs that he sponsored for referral to the ballot were of the "let's screw with brown people" variety, which leads to the conclusion that he only respects voters' opinions (and votes) when they coincide with his own.

Reining in those dastardly brown Mexicans immigrants? Gooood voters...

Reining in saintly nativist American legislators? Baaaadd voters...

For this spectacularly shameless flip-flop of the "reverse one and a half somersaults with three and a half twists" variety, Rep. Russell Pearce reels in this week's Sunday Morning Crappie Award.

BTW - Pearce is running for state senate this year. Judah Nativio is running against him, and can use your help and your vote.

4000

Bush's War has reached a grim milestone - when four soldiers died in a roadside bombing Sunday night, the official American death toll there passed 4000. (CNN)

As far as America's historical war casualty totals go (WW1 - 116,000; WW2 - 405,000; Vietnam 58,000; source - fas.org), that 4000 doesn't seem like much, but it's a record for wars that we've started, and started under false pretenses.

Perhaps "4000" may not seem like much to the likes of George "What? Me Worry?" Bush and Dick "Americans think the war is a mistake? So?" Cheney, every single one of those more than 4000 deaths was absolutely devastating to the victims, their families, their friends, and their colleagues.

Of course, Bush and Cheney may feel they just have their eyes on the bigger picture -

In 2002, Halliburton's earnings before taxes number was a loss of $228 million;

In 2007, that number was a positive $3.4 billion. (source: Morningstar)


What's 4000 lives weighed against billions of dollars?


On a related note, I wasn't going to do a "Sunday Morning Crappie Award" post this week, but Arizona's junior U.S. Senator, Jon Kyl, has earned at least an honorary award for his blithely shameless support of the president and his policies while questioning Sen. Barack Obama's 'seriousness' and 'wisdom.'

Somebody should clue Kyl in - there hasn't been any wisdom in the White House since January 2001.

And for that blatant double standard - criticizing the qualifications of a Democratic candidate for president while ignoring the fact that the President he so ardently supports is perhaps the most unqualified man to ever sit in the Oval Office, and one that is unqualified for the very reasons that he cites in criticism of the Democratic candidate - Jon Kyl wins an honorary award of this week's Sunday Morning Crappie.*

* - the award is an honorary one because this isn't really a flip-flop by Kyl. He's been Bush's lapdog for years.

Sunday Morning Crappie (belated)

My apologies to DB and other faithful readers for the even-more-infrequent-than-I-expected awarding of this dubious (and rather malodorous) honor. Between my work schedule and other demands (the presidential delegate selection caucus - more on that on Tuesday), it's been tough to stay on schedule with these posts.

The first nominee for this week's award has already been mentioned in an earlier post. George W. Bush didn't even wait to be hooked and reeled in - he flip-flopped his way into the boat with his cautions against helping out struggling homeowners at the same time the government was bailing out an investment bank. The only question is was the bailout to help Bear Stearns or was it intended to subsidize JP Morgan's bargain-basement purchase of the now-stabilized Bear Stearns.

The second nominee is...the ever-conscientious George W. Bush, who, after saying that he doesn't think that measures to help those affected by the looming recession and the mortgage crisis should be too strong, turned around and urged Congress to do something about the economy.

Of course, what he wants Congress to do is make his tax cuts for the wealthy permanent, enacting 'free-trade' deals to ease the offshoring of American jobs, cutting pork spending (leaving more money in the budget for Halliburton and other beneficiaries of no-bid contracts.

I suppose it could be argued that there's no flip-flop here - he doesn't want anything done to help the average American, whether by him or by Congress.

However, as strong a case as Bush has presented this week (OK, presents *every* week :) ), the third nominee and winner is Randy Pullen, chairman of the Arizona Republican Party.

On the flip side in his blog, he criticized AZ Governor Janet Napolitano by associating her with the travails of soon-to-be-former NY Governor Eliot Spitzer. He excoriated Spitzer for cheating on his wife with a prostitute.

However, on the flop side, he has yet to call for the resignation of indicted Arizona Congressman Rick Renzi, saying only that he thinks that Renzi "will do what is best for his family, constituents and party."

A couple of minor points here - Spitzer's behavior, while utterly deplorable, involved consenting adults; the only betrayal was his betrayal of his wife and marriage; Renzi's behavior, however, has involved betraying his entire Congressional district and his oath of office (as well as assorted fraud, extortion, and money laundering statutes.)

He hurt many thousands of people with his misdeeds; arguably, Spitzer hurt only his family and himself.

For spewing a shameless double standard like Bush, but doing so in a down-home, Arizona-centered way, Randy Pullen is this week's "winner" of the Sunday Morning Crappie.


Thanks to Emily Bittner of the Arizona Democratic Party for noticing Pullen's flip, wiggle and flop. She deserves a raise - anyone who has to read Pullen's tripe as part of their job isn't getting paid enough. :))