Hiatus

I was going to do this before the Rodricks post, but I felt that necessary to point out.

I am going to take a hiatus from blogging (and politics in general) for personal reasons. That means no blogging and no participation in the Conservative Refuge podcasts. Greg and Brandon will be fine carrying the flag without me for a while.

When I am ready, I will return to both. Please be patient...

Completely Unnecessary

In the wake of today's horrible Virginia Tech shooting, Dan Rodricks predictably found it necessary to be a jerk:

I can't wait to hear the gun nuts today on talk radio: If the professors and teachers had guns, this wouldn't happen. If America's universities were not so heavily influenced by liberal intellectuals, this would never happen. All students would be armed and able to defend themselves. It's all so predictable -- all so tragically predictable.

Yes, politicizing a tragedy like this one clearly shows that one has the moral higher ground. Neither side should be trying to make political hay right now.

I cannot understand why Rodricks felt it necessary to be such a jerk after such a horrific incident.

MSL Dinner on April 26th

Just wanted to let everybody know that tickets are still available for the Maryland Student Legislature Tomorrow's Leaders, Today dinner on April 26th at the Four Points Sheraton, BWI in Linthicum. Tickets are $50 a person. If you have any questions or need to reserve tickets, email me or call 410-431-8888.

Spelling Problems

According to the Capital, John Leopold wants people to know he can spell "Anne Arundel":

Rumors swirl that County Executive John R. Leopold, concerned for his image, is quietly trying to set the record straight.

He wants it known that it wasn't his fault the pamphlets at a reception last week misspelled Anne Arundel County.

More than 50 people, including a who's-who of Anne Arundel, gathered in the lobby of the Arundel

Center last week to celebrate the portrait hanging of former county executive Janet S. Owens. The photographer who had done the work handed out miniature portraits with the caption: "Janet S Owens, Anne Arundle Co. Executive, 1998-2006."

Oops.

So, in case no one noticed, photographer Stan Stearns, handed out the pamphlets.

And the pamphlets came in envelopes with Mr. Stearns' name on them.

For his part, Mr. Stearns is not too worried.

"So I misspelled Arundel. What's the big deal? The portrait hanging on the wall has it right," he said.

But Mr. Leopold worries enough about his reputation, so it is important to get on the record that he knows how to spell Anne Arundel.

Other than the fact that Leopold would be the kind to put image over everything else why should we be surprised by this? It's because nobody seemed to notice during the campaign that his campaign literature and campaign television commercials had multiple spelling errors. Usually misspelling such hard to define words as "Treasurer" and "Executive."

If Leopold spent less time worrying about his image, and more time not trying to raise taxes, we'd actually get somewhere...

Taking on our Electoral College bill

CNN's Bill Schneider takes on Maryland's Electoral College debacle (with video, too):

In our current system, the president is elected by the electoral college and not directly by the people. The number of electoral votes each state receives depends on its population and representatives are chosen to vote on behalf of the people in the state. To win, a candidate has to win 270 electoral votes, which is a majority. If neither candidate gets that, Congress determines who wins. A few times, the American people's choice for president hasn't actually moved into the White House.

It's mostly Democrats who are behind this move. They're still angry over how Bush got elected, even though in 2004, a shift of about 60 thousand votes in Ohio would have elected John Kerry despite Bush's popular vote margin of over three million.

The new system would also nationalize the presidential campaign. Right now, candidates spend most of their time campaigning in battleground states. Often they try to win over voters in little tiny places, like South Succotash, Ohio, and East Icicle, New Hampshire.

If the new system were adopted, constitutional scholar Tom Mann said there would be major changes to campaign strategies. "You would see a much greater emphasis by the candidates campaigning in large, uncompetitive states. States like California, Texas and New York," he said.

The campaigns would go to ignored places like Houston and Los Angeles and New York because there are a lot of voters in those places. And unlike before, their votes would now matter.

But the new rules would also disconnect a state's voters from its electors. Maryland voters could vote 100 percent Democratic, but if the Republican won the national vote, Maryland's electoral vote would go to the Republican. "It's based on the proposition that, say, those of us who live in Maryland care more about the national outcome of the popular vote for the president across the country than we do for our own particular state," Mann said.

Since independents and third party candidates would no longer have to carry entire states, it would encourage more of them to get in. Someone could win the national vote with a bare plurality, perhaps as low as 25 or 30 percent. And a very weak mandate.

And, leaving the Constitutionality questions that I have raised aside, that goes back to this fundamental point; why did Maryland legislators find any of this to be a good thing?

Good for Whom?

The Sun has declared the General Assembly session good to John Leopold.

Of course, I would note that it was absolutely poor to the people of Anne Arundel County. Limiting the people's rights to participate in the School Board Selection process and infringing upon their Constitutional rights of free speech through banning sign-waving is nothing anybody involved in these processes should be proud of...

Meanwhile, the Capital has declared the School Board bill to be a "victory" for the county:

The school board bill, pushed by Mr. Leopold, will create an 11-member School Board Nominating Commission to choose nominees for five-year terms on the board beginning July 1. The governor could fill vacancies only from that list of names.

After being appointed, a member of the board would have to be approved by the voters at the next general election.

The legislation also increases the board to nine members with one more at-large seat and establishes salaries for everyone but the student representative. Under the bill, which goes into effect July 1, the board president would receive $8,000 a year and the other members would get $6,000.

"It is really monumental," Mr. Busch said. "It brings us into a modern era of our school board selection."

Nobody can explain to me how having an election process that barely allows for public participation and putting the nominating process in the hands of unelected (and more than likely liberal) elites brings anything into the modern era. This is a tremendous step backwards in the realm of public participation in that the people have even less voice in the process than they did before. Had the delegation supported the McConkey amendment that would have allowed challengers to file to run against the appointed members of the Board, myself and other supporters of allowing parents and taxpayers to actually participate in the process would have deemed it sufficient.

Sen. Bryan Simonaire has talked about petitioning the bill to referendum once it is signed. I hope that he follows through with this...

Quiet Time

Just in case some of you are wondering why I have been quiet, with the end of session and all, just know that I don't feel the need to say something just to say something. I haven't felt particularly interested in saying anything recently...so I haven't.

If the need to blog is the only thing driving the blogger....there are serious problems.

OK, we gave them time...

...but MASN's pregame Orioles coverage is not particularly good. Of course, MASN itself has some issues given the fact that so far the audio and video still is not particularly well synched.

Reclaiming the High Ground

Republican leadership in the General Assembly made a smart move yesterday when encouraging the Governor to veto four bills that epitomize the left-wing tilt our state government has taken this year.

The four bills selected by the leadership are classic examples of leadership that is more hell-bent on being ideologues as opposed to leaders. Sure, the far left gets excited with this kind of legislation, but I'm sure that your average Maryland voter does not want drug offenders serving mandatory minimum sentences to have parole available to them. Nor do they want felons to have the right to vote. Nor do I think that the middle class Maryland taxpayer wants to foot the bill for instate tuition for illegal immigrants. And while the issue surrounding the electoral college interstate compact bill is more obtuse, clearly it is a sign that things are not right in Annapolis.

Mainstream Marylanders likely think that these issues are an ideological bridge too far.

This is a good effort for Republican legislators to get some publicity for our side, as well as an opportunity to show how out of touch the leadership in Annapolis is with the voters of the state of Maryland.

You Think our Nannystatism is Bad...

I love going to England, but this level of nannystatism is impressive even by European standards:

Britain is already one of the most watched nations on earth and now "talking" CCTV cameras are to be installed in 20 areas across the country.

The loudspeakers will allow CCTV operators to bark orders at people committing anti-social behaviour.

They are already used in Middlesbrough, where council workers in a control centre can monitor pictures from 12 cameras in town and communicate directly with people on the street.

Supporters of the scheme there say it has prevented fights and criminal damage, and cut litter levels.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, has set aside nearly £500,000 to fund the expansion of the scheme, which opponents have criticised as "Big Brother gone mad"....

...Richard Thomas, the Information Commissioner, gave a stark warning last year that Britain is turning into a Big Brother society where the lives of millions of inhabitants are tracked from cradle to grave.

A study commissioned by his office concluded that within 10 years, surveillance will be all-pervasive, spurred on by Government claims that it is needed to fight terrorism. The report appeared to reinforce Mr Thomas' claim two years earlier that "we are sleepwalking into a surveillance society''.

Clearly, I am glad to see that the Brits are taking care of cutting litter levels through surveillance.

Then again, maybe this is indicative of the current problems with British politics; too busy worried about what the average British citizen is doing instead of worrying about finding ways to deal with internal threats and ways to avoid appeasing Iran.

The Capital's Common Sense

The Capital editorial today echoed something I have been saying for a while:

The state Senate and the House have passed a measure that - if it had been in effect in 2004 - would have cast all 10 of Maryland's electoral votes for George W. Bush, even though this state's voters picked John Kerry.

And this would be done in the name of democratic principles. Go figure.

The same measure also blows a juicy raspberry at the Constitution's built-in system for amendments.....

...Our hope is that, if worst came to worst, the courts would throw out these extra-legal pledges and remind apparently clueless state legislators of how one amends the Constitution: Either a national convention must be called at the request of two-thirds of the states, or an amendment must pass the House and the Senate by two-thirds majorities and then be ratified by three-fourths of the state legislatures.

It's not a simple process. It wasn't meant to be. But it has been done 27 times, and sometimes for awful ideas like Prohibition (the 18th Amendment). If there's overwhelming national support of direct popular election of presidents, an amendment can be ratified. And if there isn't such overwhelming support, the Constitution shouldn't be touched.

In nations that elect by popular vote, candidates lose interest in regional issues and concentrate on the most populous areas - which for America would be states like California, Texas, New York and Florida. We can't see how such a system would benefit Maryland, which is now slighted not because of its size, but because its presidential vote can be taken for granted by one party.

In any case, this bill is an example of how not to change the Constitution. It should be vetoed by the governor.

A pretty succinct interpretation of this mind-numbingly bad idea. I just wish that the Capital were so pro-voter when it came to the school board bill...

Random Picture: 04-01-07

In Florida, they have bug zappers at their rest stops. This is off of Interstate 4 between Ocala and the split with Interstate 275 northeast of Tampa: