City to examine spending

Unbelievable, the City of Boulder is going to examine spending.

Those involved in the effort hope outside experts can take a look at how Boulder spends its money, and find ways to deliver the same services. But it might not be that easy: Boulder’s budgets are still recovering from the post-2001 lulls, and the only way to save money might be to cut services.


Cut services!? What a novel idea. I would start with reducing spending on transporting prairie dogs and then move on to the City land use department. Commenter Robert Paul Smoke takes the City government and Council to task, his comments are a must read. This one particularly strikes a chord…

let’s expend more on the planning dept. per capita than any city nationally —

(sarcasm intended I believe)

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Eliminating MA state income tax

What an interesting concept, eliminating the Massachusetts state income tax

Supporters of Question 1, a measure that would eliminate the state’s 5.3 percent income tax, denounced government spending as wasteful and excessive and said workers deserve to keep more of their wages in hard economic times.


At best I have a distant memory that a similar resolution almost passed 6 years ago.

In 2002, a similar ballot measure gained 45 percent of the vote, a level of support that stunned many political observers.

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Communist Manifesto

Article 5 seems most relevant at the present time…

1. Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

2. A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

3. Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

4. Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

5. Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

6. Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

7. Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

8. Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Barney and Fannie

Glenn Reynolds has a roundup of additional articles on Barney Frank, Fannie and confict of interest.

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Local poll shows 12 % swing

An unscientific poll in the Longmont Times-Call shows a 12% swing towards the McCain/Palin ticket after the VP debate.

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Fannie Mae and conflict of interest

Can you believe Barney Frank’s name surfaces again? Me neither! Perhaps it’s just FOX news making stuff up?

Unqualified home buyers were not the only ones who benefitted from Massachusetts Rep. Barney Frank’s efforts to deregulate Fannie Mae throughout the 1990s.

So did Frank’s partner, a Fannie Mae executive at the forefront of the agency’s push to relax lending restrictions.


Just in case there’s any doubt, which is hard to believe, partner means boyfriend/lover. The seeds of a conflict of interest? No way says Frank…

Both Frank and Moses assured the Wall Street Journal in 1992 that they took pains to avoid any conflicts of interest. Critics, however, remain skeptical.

“It’s absolutely a conflict,” said Dan Gainor, vice president of the Business & Media Institute. “He was voting on Fannie Mae at a time when he was involved with a Fannie Mae executive. How is that not germane?

“If this had been his ex-wife and he was Republican, I would bet every penny I have – or at least what’s not in the stock market – that this would be considered germane,” added Gainor, a T. Boone Pickens Fellow. “But everybody wants to avoid it because he’s gay. It’s the quintessential double standard.”

What did Moses do at Fannie?

The two lived together in a Washington home until they broke up in 1998, a few months after Moses ended his seven-year tenure at Fannie Mae, where he was the assistant director of product initiatives. According to National Mortgage News, Moses “helped develop many of Fannie Mae’s affordable housing and home improvement lending programs.”

Critics say such programs led to the mortgage meltdown that prompted last month’s government takeover of Fannie Mae and its financial cousin, Freddie Mac. The giant firms are blamed for spreading bad mortgages throughout the private financial sector.

And could Barney take any responsibility for the crisis?

Although Frank now blames Republicans for the failure of Fannie and Freddie, he spent years blocking GOP lawmakers from imposing tougher regulations on the mortgage giants. In 1991, the year Moses was hired by Fannie, the Boston Globe reported that Frank pushed the agency to loosen regulations on mortgages for two- and three-family homes, even though they were defaulting at twice and five times the rate of single homes, respectively.

Three years later, President Clinton’s Department of Housing and Urban Development tried to impose a new regulation on Fannie, but was thwarted by Frank. Clinton now blames such Democrats for planting the seeds of today’s economic crisis.

Didn’t think so!

And one more thing, the Clinton’s sure aren’t sounding like main stream Democrats these days. What’s up with that? Hillary in 2012 perhaps? Nah, couldn’t be… could it?

And I want to say a few more words about taking responsibility, not in this case but in general. It seems people simply don’t want to take responsibility for decisions they are responsible for. Take Bob Hullinghorst, Boulder County Treasurer that has at least temporarily lost access to $601,000 of County funds due to investments in the Colorado Diversified Trust. Should Bob have been able to realize that capital was at risk with this investment? That’s unclear. Still, who decided to make the investment? Either he was or someone in his department. Who should take responsibility, well Mr. Hullinghorst of course.

I see a difference between taking responsibility and perceived incompetence. I think Mr. Hullinghorst, who isn’t paid like a investment expert or hedge fund manager was probably making prudent investments. Still, it happened under his watch and it’s his responsibility. Take responsibility or find a new job.

I don’t think Bob needs to find a new job, just be a stand-up guy, say “Hey it happened under my watch, so I’m responsible. I apologize to the citizens of Boulder County and we’re taking all reasonable steps to retrieve these assets as close to full price as we can.

Posted in bailout, County Government, ethics, politics | Leave a comment

Peak Aspen viewing season

Great slide show.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

NRCC Bailout Ad

The National Republican Congressional Committee has an ad out directing blame to the Democrats…

Oddss are high you’ve already seen this ad before you got here!

There is certainly more than one point of view, but this is one view liberals absolutely don’t want to hear about. My belief is the issue goes further back than this and it still points to the Dems.

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Drudge VP poll update

Biden strengthened a few percentage points from yesterday evening.

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Programming skills in demand

From Elance, a contract engineering web site…

Get the latest skills in demand update here.

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VP Debate: Who won?

From Drudge:

From Instapundit:

Posted in debate, politics | Leave a comment

Katie Couric

First words out of her mouth were something to the effect that “Sarah Palin didn’t embarrass herself”. Katie you embarrass yourself making a comment like that.

Fox News commentor’s seems to think she did quite well.

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Oil Prices

The short term (hourly bars for last 4 days)…

and the longer term (daily chart from late June)…

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Elk in Rocky Mountain National Park

Courtesy of the Longmont Times-Call.

Posted in the weekend | Leave a comment

Radio reporter fired

Longtime Metro Detroit radio reporter Karen Dinkins has been fired after wearing a pro-Barack Obama T-shirt while covering a rally for the presidential candidate Sunday at the Detroit Public Library.


Amazing.

I find myself feeling rather cynical regarding this statement from station management…

Georgeann Herbert, WWJ’s director of programming, said in a statement that Dinkins compromised the station’s objectivity by wearing the T-shirt.

“(The station) believes that our credibility with our listeners rests on the independence of our newsroom staff,” the statement said. “WWJ does not favor any candidate, party or issue.

“While we encourage employees to exercise their rights as citizens, we expect them to be on guard against any actual or perceived conflict of interest when covering news stories,” the statement said.


That IS the way it should be.

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Economic issues hurting Republicans

John Hinderaker over at Powerline has a rather dismal, but probably realistic update on Republican chances for the upcoming election.

With a month to go, the election is looking bleak for us conservatives. The current economic crisis should, by rights, hurt the Democrats, who bear far more responsibility for causing it than the Republicans. But the public doesn’t understand that, and blames anything bad on the party that controls the White House, however irrational that may be. And, of course, the television networks and newspapers aren’t going out of their way to enlighten the voters.


I think that pretty much sums it up. The last sentence has a special ring of truth to it.

The only bright spot is that the NY Times will continue to see it’s circulation decline as it becomes less and less relevent. That said, I wouldn’t call Obama for the demise of the Times a good trade.

Posted in bailout, financial crisis, politics | Leave a comment

Roll the dice

Apparently Barney Frank wanted to “roll the dice” a little with Fannie and Freddie.

Barney, you’re not rolling my dice in Vegas!

Posted in bailout, stoopid politicians | Leave a comment

Randy Luallin for County Commissioner – District 3

From Randy’s web site, this is enough for me…

Redress of Grievances:

Since it is highly unlikely that there will ever be true debate in the upcoming elections: 3 minute introductions and 3 minute answers to canned questions without rebuttal is not debate: the following list of grievances is submitted and redress is to elect Libertarian County Commissioners in Boulder County and make the changes.

In That the current Democratic County Commissioners

1.Have refused to change election of County Commissioners by the district they represent as requested, instead maintaining election at large by the whole county.

2. Have kept and maintained a tax on the citizens called the “Worthy Cause Tax” which is given to non governmental institutions at the discretion of the Same County Commissioners.

3. Have maintained a subjective and overbearing as well as exhaustive site plan review process to stop development in the county.

4. Have reduced property development rights unlawfully and then required the bartering, buying and selling of remaining rights among free citizens with the first purchase to be made from the County itself from undeveloped property purchased with tax dollars in the form of open space and conservation easements.

5. Have created special overlay districts with restrictions on historical uses. Requiring such things as new septic systems where none is needed and special use reviews of subjective nature to impair existing and future use of private properties and businesses by creating oppressive financial burdens too heavy to bear.

6. Have hidden behind the closed doors of Executive session colluding among themselves violating the Sunshine law to achieve their vision and ideal of Boulder County.

7. Have treated the public forum and public comment as a mere formality that they must endure before they proceed with their plans. In doing so they have disenfranchised entire segments of the population whose needs and desires are not represented.

8. Have treated unfairly and without equal protection the citizens of this County giving verbal undocumented approval to Corporations such as Cemex for its activities while bringing lawsuit against religious institutions such as the Rocky Mountain Christian Church at great cost for the same request.

9. Have refused to answer straight forward questions regarding Land Use Staff activities as well as their own involvement in regards to the activities of Cemex.

10. Have perpetrated legislation amending CRS 13-17-102-8 giving them the ability to bring frivolous and vexatious lawsuits against its citizens with no danger of penalty or payment of court costs and damages when they lose.

11. Have created an atmosphere of fear of reprisal by the Land Use Department on developers and landowners should they speak out against their draconian measures.

12. Have limited the right of free citizens to contract with whom they wish by withholding building permits unless contract is made with those whom the County tests, taxes and license.

13. Have appointed themselves (Ron Stewart) to high-paying jobs, skirting the normal search process, in order to ensconce their personal position on the county’s citizens in perpetuity.

14. Have unlawfully created de facto easements on private property by consistently passing land use rulings and restrictions that favor those citizens with longer residency over their newer neighbors who seek to build or expand their homes in Boulder County.

15. Have in order to preserve “the rural character ” of Boulder County and guarantee “a variety of housing stock”, unlawfully discriminated against one group of citizens by taxing the size of their homes, rather than sharing the cost with all of us.

16. Have, in the name of energy conservations and “sustainability” and with total disregard of life-cycle costs, imposed outrageous rules and regulations far in excess of most other American communities, that impede the freedom of our residents to peacefully enjoy the fruits of their labor.

17. Have attempted to stop development within the county through subversive tactics that include restricted building due to slope of property and without consent combining contiguous lots of the same ownership.

YOU MAY NOT BE PERSONALLY IMPACTED BY THE ABOVE INFRACTIONS BUT YOU SHOULD RECOGNIZE THAT THIS IS NOT GOOD GOVERNMENT. IF YOU ELECT ME AS YOUR PUBLIC SERVANT I PLEDGE TO YOU.

1. GOVERNMENT THAT DOES NOT CATER TO THE VISION OF A SEGMENT OF THE POPULATION AND FOIST IT ON THE WHOLE.

2. GOVERNMENT THAT LISTENS TO THE CONCERNS OF CITIZENS AND FINDS BALANCE IN THE SOLUTIONS.

3. GOVERNMENT THAT PROTECTS YOUR RIGHTS AS INDIVIDUALS REGARDLESS OF THE WILL OF THE MAJORITY

4. GOVERNMENT THAT STAYS WITHIN THE BOUNDARIES SET FORTH IN THE CONSTITUTION OF OUR REPUBLIC

5. GOVERNMENT THAT ENCOURAGES DIALOG AND SOLUTIONS AMONG ITS CITIZENS BEFORE ENACTING MORE LAWS.

6. GOVERNMENT THAT ALLOWS YOU TO BE WHO YOU ARE IN A FREE AND EQUAL SOCIETY.

Add to this Randy’s letter to the editor that was published on the Camera’s letter to the editor blog, taking on Will Toor and Ben Pearlman in regards to “telling the truth”. Note, this letter has not been published in the actual paper, only on the blog where all received letters are published.

The Boulder County Commissioner Power Troika must go.

Posted in Boulder is stoopid, County Government | Leave a comment

RETRACT: T+xxx on Boulder County $35,000 ballot reprint

ERROR on my part.

Turns out that the Daily Camera did report the ballot reprint issue as you can see here. Interestingly enough, they did not report the cost.

The Boulder is a Stoopid Place blog apologizes to the Daily Camera for it’s errors. My bad.

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Boulder County Ballot Issue 1A

Here is an explanation of the Boulder County website of the benefits of ballot issue 1A

1A asks voters to allow Boulder County to issue bonds for the purpose of providing financing options for renewable energy and energy efficiency improvements via a “Clean Energy Options Local Improvement District.” This local improvement district would provide a voluntary mechanism for property owners – both residential and commercial – to obtain financing for renewable energy improvements, such as installing a solar power system, or retrofitting a home to increase energy efficiency.

The issue does not ask for an increase in taxes. All property owners that participate in the financing provided through the Clean Energy Options LID will be responsible for repaying their own individual debts through a special assessment on their properties.

The issue would allow Boulder County to issue up to a maximum of $40 million in special assessment bonds.

(There is additiona information if you follow the link).

In a letter to the editor in the Boulder Daily Camera, one Conor Merrigan tells us how important he believes this ballot issue is:

Ballot Issue 1A is one of the single most important issues to be voted on in recent memory. Important for energy, important for economic relief, important for the environment, important for short-timers, this one aims to please.


Whew, at least it’s only “one of” the single most important issue to be voted on in recent memory instead of actually “the” single most important issue. It would be nice to know what the other “most important issues” are in Conor’s mind. Frankly this sounds like an extravagance that the County shouldn’t get involved in.

Of course the concept behind the ballot is, in Conor’s words…

The concept is simplistic and brilliant; the County will leverage their municipal borrowing power to initiate low-interest loans attached to property tax for efficiency improvements that should save the occupants more on their utility bills than they will pay in loan premiums, with a price that will just keep looking better as the years go on.


In today’s “new world” the idea of the County “leveraging their municipal borrowing power” doesn’t necessarily sound like such a great idea for the County’s credit rating, which needs to be protected. Furthermore, how will a potential buyer view the additional property tax when he compares it with other properties?

I have to come back to the idea that this is “one of the single most important issues to be voted on in recent memory”. I’m sorry Conor, it simply isn’t. No way.

Posted in Boulder is stoopid, County Government, enviro wackos | 1 Comment