civil's blog

After 30 years and $13B in construction costs, the Yucca Mountain Spent Uranium fuel depository is ready for operation. President Obama, true to a campaign promise, immediately ordered it padlocked. In keeping with past closings of facilities (Gitmo) he ordered the closing with no plan in place for the disposal of the spent Uranium fuel from the 100 or so nuclear power plants operating in the U.S. Existing storage ponds will soon fill, forcing a shutdown of the plants, which supply 20% of the nation's electrical power.

Since when did it become the resposibility of the Federal Government to provide any of its citizens with health care? From http://www.kevincraig.us/generalwelfare.htm
The Federal Government only has the powers which "We the People" delegated to it in the Constitution.
The New American Magazine listed all of the enumerated powers and duties of Congress. That list, which should be at the fingertips of every congressman, follows.

It is time the American people insisted on term limits of members of congress and effectively rid ourselves of the professional politician. Under the present system the Senators and Representatives maintain a presence in Washington so long they forget the people who sent them there. They become enamored of their own importance, begin seeking their own enrichment and become the pawns of influential lobbyists.

Other cities have Saturday Night Movies in the Park. Independence has Weekend Fights in the Parks. Channel 41 just ran a clip of teens fighting in one of the city parks (I came in too late to identify the park) Why the devil did not somebody with the city arrange to have that shown Monday evening? The city did a miserable job of selling the police services sales tax.

In a few short six months the Obama administration has made a shambles out of what was the best economic system the world has ever seen. They have completely derailed a system that gave this country a level of prosperity that was the envy of the world. Now they are focusing on doing the same thing to our health care system. In order to give health care to 2% of the population they are ruining it for the other 98% and spending $one trillion in the process. We all should contact our national legislators and tell them to stop this madness.

A Marine vet posed an interesting question to Sen. McCaskill at her Health Care forum. He was of the opinion that the governments entry into the health care field is unconstitutional, per Article I, section 8. I post section 8 here. Read it and let us know what you think. Is any of the current government actions constitutional, going back to TARP1 and continuing through the auto takeovers, cap and trade and health care overhaul. What do you think?
Article I, section 8.

I think the time has come for me to wrap up my contribution to the police services sales tax issue. Most people have made up their minds on how to vote on it by this time. Further discussion is fruitless. Time to close the debate. I am surprised at how little push the city has made for the tax. Should it not pass they have 3 more opportunities; February's primary, April's final and again in August 2010. After that they may have to amend 82.875 to ease up the population restrictions. One last note.

In his recent newsletter Rep. Dougherty (district 53) has a pic of the Arch. drawing of the  combined Police and Fire building planned for East Independence. Good looking structure.

I suppose all of you are aware of the push to create an Arts District in Englewood with the theater as the central show piece. Here is the consultant;s idea for a PR piece to advertise it:

STUD  ROOSTER

A farmer went out one day and bought a brand new 

There has been a lot of grousing on this blog about the City of Independence calling for an election on August 4, 2009, instead of later when there are more items on the ballot. Does anybody know when that may be? The next election date on the Missouri calendar is November 3, 2009 and I know of no planned elections for that date, so it would seem an election in Independence on that date would also be a single item ballot. Anybody know anything different?

There has been a lot of chatter on this blog, some favoring the police tax proposal, some against it. It is not my intent to sway anybody's vote one way or another. I am more concerned that each of us does vote. At the last election about 8% of those eligible did vote. Somewhere between 4 and 5 per cent carried the day. So, of the voting population in Independence less than 5% govern what and how the other 95% function within the city. Sad.

At last there is something out of D.C. I can agree with. Somebody, I don't know nor care who, has suggested that the remaining TARP funds be used to give small businesses direct loans. This was the intent of the bank bail outs, to raise the banks liquidity level so they could provide loans. Unfortunately, instead of lending the banks kept the money to make their balance sheets look better. Elisa is a small business owner. She probably knows better than most that business operates on credit. They take out loans in order to pay invoices early and get the 10 day net savings.