Boulder is a Stoopid Place

Geez, I can’t wait until the Boulder politicians and activists get a hold of this. Pet Guardians of Boulder rejoice, soon you will have a daily routine provided by your politicians on how best to take care of your “pet”.

Ward Churchill has plenty of academic freedom but UNLV tenured economics Professor Hans-Hermann Hoppe went through a nightmare. Described in an article penned by the Professor himself in Frontpagemag.com he describes the year long battle with the politically correct UNLV administration.

Here is an outline of UNLV’s academic freedom rules and environment…

Las Vegas prides itself for its tolerance and so does UNLV, its university. At the university, however, tolerance is selective. You may assert that white heterosexual males are responsible for all of mankind’s misery, that Castro’s Cuba is a great success story, that capitalism means exploitation, or that most university professors are liberals because conservatives are too stupid to teach. If anyone should complain about this, such complaint will be dismissed outright.

And rightly so. After all, the university is committed to academic freedom. Its faculty has the “freedom and an obligation … (to) discuss and pursue the faculty member’s subject with candor and integrity, even when the subject requires consideration of topics which may be politically, socially or scientifically controversial. … (a) faculty member…shall not be subjected to censorship or discipline by the University … on grounds that the faculty member has expressed opinions or views which are controversial, unpopular or contrary to the attitudes of the University…or the community.”

The single line paragraph that follows is the “kicker”…

None of this applies to professors who dissent from socialist, statist, or culturally left-wing views, however, as I would find out.

Unbelievable. To make a long story short, with the help of a volunteer attorney and of all people, the ACLU, all charges were dropped. It still seems to me that academic freedom lost.

Also, Professor Hoppe realizes, correctly in my opinion, that legal action against the school is a losing battle from a practical point of view.

Well, the Dow had a mind of its’ own and the Nikkei had worries about China so the Dow chose its own course. At the risk of copyright I’ll post the chart as the link would update everyday and would soon become useless….

After reading this post at Cheat-Seeking Missiles, I’m awfully curious how the Daily Camera’s circulation is doing. Although I’m sure they would deny it on their deathbed, journalistic elites work every day at the Camera!

I will admit when it comes to elites the Boulder County Commissioners (or at least the prior ones and PROBABLY the present ones) have a more elitist attitude then the editors!

^N225: Basic Chart for NIKKEI 225 INDEX – Yahoo! Finance

As you can see from this graph, the Nikkei 225 has been leading the Dow 30 on the downside. Tomorrow might be ugly!

A Marine in Iraq’s letter to his college friends living the good life back home.

The World Tribune reports that China’s highly controlled internet is all over Condi, obviously with the blessing of the government. Here are some highlights…

“She looks like an orangutan, and talks rubbish; send us a beautiful woman next time,” stated one contributor to Sina.com.

“This black woman is not welcome!!!” stated another.

“She looks absolutely like a witch!” said a third.

The article then states….

Racist thinking nurtured by political isolation is believed to be widespread in China

No kidding! “Enjoy” the complete article here.

This became public knowledge because prosecutors are required by law to disclose information they have that can help the defense. To the DA’s credit, he believes that quotas on DUI arrests should be disclosed. Of course the Chief of Police doesn’t believe they have quotas…

Boulder police Chief Mark Beckner denied the department’s use of quotas, but said it does have “performance standards” officers are expected to meet. Those may include striving for numbers of arrests in areas the community demands, he said.

Interestingly, for 2004 the department was scheduled to receive a $50,000 grant if they met a goal of 1000 DUI arrests. It’s not clear if they received it or not, but it sure does stink.

Here are some comments from a local defense attorney…

Boulder defense attorney Mark Langston said the mention of quotas makes any lawyer pause and question why their client was arrested.

“If it’s public safety, then that’s a legitimate concern,” he said. “But if it’s to secure some sort of funding or other benefit … it creates real problems and legitimate questions about what theofficers’ motivations are.”

It could have a real impact, Langston said, on cases with very little evidence that rely heavily on officer testimony. “It’s not fair to the officers either,” he said. “It puts the entire system in an awkward position.”

…Chief Beckner defends the “performance standards” as a way to set goals and hold employees accountable. Read the complete article.

Smartmoney.com: Ahead of the Curve: Trust but Verify

Does anyone care? Geez what a bunch of useless babble on Fox News covering this “newsworthy” event.

a rotten finger!

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050409/D89BJV380.html

This guy wins the $27 million lottery and doesn’t have time to chat because he’s worried about being late for work. Unbelievable, yet his reaction probably bodes well for his financial future compared to the numerous lotto winners that have done the financial “round trip”. Enjoy the story!

a former CU conservative, evangelical history Professor Phil Mitchell. Read the Denver Post story and blogger Betsy Newmarks comments as well. The incident below should be enough to arouse your curiosity (if not anger!)…

Mitchell taught at the Hallett Diversity Program for 24 straight semesters. That is, until he made the colossal error of actually presenting a (gasp!) diverse opinion, quoting respected conservative black intellectual Thomas Sowell in a discussion about affirmative action.

Sitting 5 feet from a pink triangle that read “Hate-Free Zone,” the progressive head of the department berated Mitchell, calling him a racist.”That would have come as a surprise to my black children,” explains Mitchell, who has nine kids, as of last count, two of them adopted African-Americans

To save your suspense, Professor Mitchell no longer is employed at the University of Colorado. Sure sounds like CU’s loss in more ways then one.

and talkative. Ron Stewart, Director of Boulder County Open Space, and former Boulder County Commissioner had this to say about the City of Lafayette’s potential plans to annex and devalue 40 acres of land owned for greater than 70 years by the same person…

“Cities have a right to decide where they want to annex and where they want to develop, and where not to,” said Ron Stewart, director of Boulder County’s Parks and Open Space Department. “It’s not always up to the property owner.”

There’s lots more to the story and you can read it here. Sounds to me that if you own a large plot of land and are near a city limit in Boulder County, sell your land FAST! This lack of respect for property rights and active effort to devalue someone’s property on which they have lived for all but 2 years of their 80 year life is sickening.

The “old” Boulder County Commissioners were up to their standard tricks, preventing a landowner from rebuilding his house (read about it here). Yes the approximately 3300 sq ft house would be replaced with a monster sized 8679 sq ft, apparently inspiring the “old” Commissioners to reject the plans by a 3-0 vote. That seems awfully big to me, but it is on 2.5 acres and the adjacent property owners don’t mind. The owners, Terrance and Judith Paul, have decided to fight “County Hall” and filed suit against Boulder County to get permission to demolish their old house and build the new one. Regarding the Commissioners decision, the Paul’s attorney states:

“Their application was denied by the Board of Commissioners despite the fact that there was overwhelming public support for it,” said Sara Bayko, an attorney representing the couple. “It has become apparent that the Board of Commissioners substituted its own judgment for those that live in the neighborhood.”

This is typical of the County Commissioners, molding Boulder County into their own arrogant image.

Since the time of the original January 11th story, two new County Commissioners have been seated, former Boulder City Mayor Will Toor and Ben Pearlman, a former Boulder County Open Space attorney. Surprisingly to me, they reversed the decision of the previous Commissioners by a 2-1 vote and allowed the Paul’s to rebuild. To the best of my knowledge, this results has not been reported by the Daily Camera but was the subject of an editorial in the Longmont Times Call (no link due to poor web site).

Geez, British Airways likes to fly across the Atlantic and then the Pacific minus one engine. The first time was a non-stop from LA to London that landed in Manchester since they were running out of gas!!! BA “fixed/replaced” the engine, it happens again (same plane) on a non-stop flight from Singapore to London where the replaced engine was powered down 3 hours into the flight.

This idiocy is justified by trying to avoid fines from new EU regulations. From the Timesonline website:

The incident happened three days after a European regulation came into force requiring airlines to compensate passengers for long delays or cancellations. Under the new rules, if the pilot had returned to Los Angeles, BA would have been facing a compensation bill of more than £100,000

Start your investigation over at Captain’s Quarters. It’s good to know that inconvenience on the ground endangers those in the air!

Todays employment report from the Department of Labor has the following interesting statistics for February:

Non-Farm payroll employment increased by 262,000
Total workforce is: 148.1 million (includes unemployed actively looking for jobs)
Unemployment rate is: 5.4% (up 0.2% from January)

It appears, at least on first glance, that the US economy is easily outperforming the German economy. This hasn’t had much effect on the German stock market as it has performed fairly well since August of last year. See here.

Note the unemployment rate is up due to people re-entering the workforce actively looking for jobs.