Musings of a Patriot

Month: July 2008

  • When Mandates Are Not Optional

    I generally do not favor government action that places a mandate on citizens. I don’t believe that it is the place of government to decide whether citizens should recycle or not, but if the options are between mandatory recycling and no recycling option after the citizens have overwhelmingly favored optional recycling it makes sense for…

  • Progression of Transit

    Hopefully the idea of growing into light rail does not come as a real surprise to anyone. {Darrell Cook}, executive director of Mountainland Association of Governments, said if the dedicated bus system linking Utah Valley University, Brigham Young University and Provo’s East Bay works as expected, the system could, in time, be replaced by a…

  • Editing for BNN/Utah

    I have been given the opportunity to function at the editor for BlogNetNews/Utah. That is not likely to produce visible changes to the site because the purpose of BNN is to remain neutral while providing an image of what’s happening in the various corners of the blogosphere. Functionally, it means that when people want to…

  • Useful Denunciations

    An interesting article on the European enthusiasm toward Barack Obama had this little gem of a thought in it: If Obama follows the sort of race-conscious policies he has faithfully supported for the last quarter century . . . then racial divisions will continue and perhaps sharpen. If he is true to the “post-racial” rhetoric…

  • An Informed View of Congestion-Pricing

    I always like to see when someone with lots more information and better credentials than me comes to the same conclusion on an issue that I have come to. In this case it is Michael R. Brown stating that Congestion-pricing positives outweigh negatives. Mr. Brown is a Certified Transportation Planner and he has been participating…

  • Advocating a Utah Lake Bridge

    One of the things that is good about Editorial boards is that when they are right about something they usually do a good job of defining and defending their position and they have the power of the press at their disposal. (One of the problems is that they have all those advantages when they are…

  • Republic of California

    51% of California voters surveyed said they would oppose Proposition 8. I suppose it’s too much to hope that some seismic activity causes California to break off from the rest of North America and convinces the people of California to declare independence. They could be the 21st century equivalent of Texas.

  • Self-Policing Lobbyists

    Often lost in discussions about ethics legislation and lobbyist influence is the fact that there is a legitimate value that lobbyists can bring to the legislative process. I’m in favor of making solid rules of ethics for legislators and lobbyists without removing lobbyists altogether. With that perspective, I really enjoyed this Deseret News story about…

  • Ambitious Pronouncement

    I’ve already stated that I believe the goal of using only energy from clean, renewable sources is attainable but I think the Green Prophet might be getting ahead of himself. {Al Gore} said the goal of producing all of the nation’s electricity from “renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources” within 10 years is not…

  • American Citizenship

    I really liked this Deseret News profile of a naturalized citizen. Airman 1st Class Elena Dulger’s face lights up the room when she talks about her first chance to participate in a democratic election. Dulger, 21, is taking her oath of citizenship today, seven years and one day after meeting her father at JFK International…