gid: March 2008 Archives

Something is starting to smell fishy. On Monday the 17th the Chattanoogan reported that some 225 delegates were chosen to elect the Hamilton County Republican party candidate for sheriff.

source
Connie Weathers, party chairman, said as many as 400 people attended.

She said some 225 delegates were chosen and there were also alternates selected.

Mrs. Weathers said party officials will now certify those workers after checking to make sure they meet the criteria, including being voters in their precincts.

On March 24th the Chattanoogan reported that there are now 300 delegates.

source
Last week, the party elected over 300 delegates whose job will be to vote on Thursday night for the Republican nominee to run for sheriff. Delegates turned out in large numbers to hear from the candidates.

I heard today that we are now at the full 480 delegates for the sheriff's race. I did try to call the Hamilton County Republican party several times today to verify the numbers, but no one is picking up the phone. My only question is, if we picked 225 delegates on the 17th, then where did the extra 255 delegates come from?

Update:It looks like there is actually 426 delegates. That number does include alternates, which means for the 426 to be legit there would have had to been 200 alternates delegates elected on the 17th. I was there and I can tell you it is not likely.

hat-tip: Jeremiah M.

Posted by gid at 11:41 PM | Comments (1)

March 25, 2008

Congressman Wamp, Carpe Diem

Last Friday I sent in an opinion on the Chattanoogan.com. It was in response to an opinion piece submitted by Zach Wamp. His opinion piece was about energy policy, and I just could not help but respond. I think our congressman has the political backing to really get things done in Washington. I really love the quote that says, "What would you attempt to do today if you knew you could not fail." Well, this is what I said:

Congressman,

While I agree with you that we need broad energy policy changes we cannot pretend to be dealing with the ever increasing cost of energy if we don't talk about the value of the dollar. I am not accusing you of this, but the common political spin is to solely blame OPEC, refinery shortages, hurricanes, and consumption as the reason for increased energy cost.

As I read what commodity traders are saying I don't hear them giving the same excuses as most politicians do. Just this week oil hit prices never seen before, and the reasoning was, and I quote "Prices scaled historic heights on Monday as they were energized by the weak dollar."

I know you know this, but if we really want to deal with the cost of energy we have to get government spending under control. We cannot continue the deficit spending and expect OPEC countries to want to invest in the American dollar. As we continue to undermine the value of the dollar through our deficit spending we should come to expect $4 a gallon at the pump.

Congressmen, due to your constituent's faithful support you are in a very unique position to really tackle one of the biggest issues of our time. While our support for you is strong, and the weight of your constituents is propping you up, stand up and tackle this albatross around our necks. With our support and the seniority you now enjoy you can boldly lead us into the 21st century.

This is my challenge to you, stand up and propose a federal balanced budget amendment. There is no greater legacy you could leave then that of a balanced budget amendment. Without this amendment future Americans will scorn our names and we will be viewed with the utmost contempt by them. We cannot continue to enslave our children and grandchildren for generations to come.
Congressman, Carpe Diem.

Posted by gid at 08:31 AM | Comments (0)

March 24, 2008

Delegates meet tonight to hear sheriff candidates

Tonight the Republican sheriff candidates will be speaking to those of us who were elected as delegates last Monday evening. I look forward to hearing what they have to say. I have done a bit of research and as of now there are two candidates I am ruling out.

In researching one of the candidates I found that he had spent 3 years in Iraq training the new Iraqi police force. This candidate spoke on March 22nd 2007 at the local Rotary Club about his time in Iraq. I do realize that his views on us being in Iraq has very little to do with the local sheriff race, but the quote below came as quite a kick in the teeth.

Below is the exact quote I got from the speech he gave at the Rotary Club. This quote was given at the end of the speech during the question answer time. He was answering a question about the working relationship he had with the Iraqi people, and at the end of his answer began to tail off into another subject. At around the 30:30 mark this is what he said:

One of the things, I was speaking to a church group a couple of weeks ago and somebody said: "Oh I just think we need to get out of there." Let me tell you one thing. Every time the US goes in with its military in any kind of situation like this; missionaries flood in behind them into these countries and right now the mission outreach into Iraq is humongous

What? I really could spend way to much time unpacking all the implications of this kind of justification for us being there, but all I am going to say is this. When we invaded Iraq, which by the way was one of the few Arab countries where being a Christian was still legal, there were 1.2 million Christians living in Iraq. Today there are less than 600,000.

If you are one of the delegates and want to hear the candidates speak, then you need to be at Westview Elementary at 7:00 PM. Here is the address:
9629 East Brainerd Road
Chattanooga, TN 37421

Posted by gid at 04:21 PM | Comments (0)

March 14, 2008

22,000 Scientist Sign Petition Refuting Carbon Footprint Initiated Global Warming

Yes that is right, 22,000 Scientist have signed. Check out the graphs on this page.

We have more than 22,000 scientist signers of our global-warming petition who've looked at the issue and concluded essentially the opposite of these United Nations people. This says nothing about the science. Science does not depend on polling. Just because we have 22,000, and the UN may have 600, does not matter. The only thing our petition demonstrates is that there is no consensus among scientists in support of the UN claims.

Update: I should have added a bit more info when adding this post the first time. These 22,000 scientist are not saying that there is no global warming. What they are saying is that the earth has been warming for 400 years, which coincides with the end of the last mini ice age that hit Europe. The evidence looks pretty convincing that the warming we are experiencing now has to do with an increase in activity on the sun, and has nothing to do with our carbon footprint.

Posted by gid at 01:15 PM | Comments (3)

March 07, 2008

William Shatner does Rocketman interpertation

Posted by gid at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)