According to the post-election analysis of votes, one other reason Dr. Tom Osborne lost the GOP gubernatorial primary to (unelected) incumbent Gov. Dave Heineman is that Dr. Tom supported the Omaha Public School District's bid to take over the west Omaha suburban schools, while Gov. Heineman came out firmly against it.
Dr. Tom did win Douglas County, but he lost the precincts of the county where OPS would have taken over the schools--and he lost them badly, something on the order of 65% for Heineman to 35% for Dr. Tom. That was enough to counter Dr. Tom's advantage in winning overall the most populous, most urban counties in the state.
He says he is going fishing. I wish him a great catch.
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So now the NSA is creating a nationwide database of "who called whom" by getting the telephone companies to give up their calling records. AT&T, Bell South, and (if memory serves, which it not always does) Verizon gave up their data . . . but Qwest did not.
I never liked Qwest. I had phone service from them for a time--and I was on their service plan--but when I had a problem with some of my house's phone wiring, I got hit with a $70 service charge. For which the tech who came to my house did exactly nothing. It seems that this wiring was not included in the service plan, because Qwest hadn't installed it. Well of course Qwest hadn't installed it. My house was built about 30 years before Qwest even existed. What really stunk, however, was that I asked the tech whether there'd be a charge, and he said "no."
I guess I am going to have to change my mind, now that Qwest has been the only company to show visible backbone in resisting this Big Brother behavior by the NSA. OK, maybe I still don't like Qwest, but I appreciate the company's legal staff's advice to just say no to the NSA.
I do have a question, however. So far, none of the news reports on this that I have seen, read, or heard have mentioned the stand of the cable companies which also provide telephone service. I'd like very much to know what they did--did Cox, for example, cave into the NSA's demands, or not?
Does anyone out there know?
Please tell me if you do!
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Tell me I am not the only person who is amused by the suggestions provided by the computer's spell checking function. I laughed out loud at this one: for "NSA's" (as I used the possessive form earlier in this post), the computer suggested I substitute "Nazis."
Res ipsa loquitor.
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Trish Lanphier, erstwhile employee of the Douglas County Treasurer's Office, has her job back. The Douglas County Civil Service Commission, after a long (12+ hours) hearing, said that Treasurer Lynn Haney was wrong to fire Lanphier, and that a 3-day unpaid suspension was punishment enough for her actions in signing and passing on a sympathy card for a convicted embezzler from the Treasurer's office.
Among other things. Haney had also accused Lanphier of insubordination and other unsavory behavior . . . after Haney had yelled so loud at Lanphier about the sympathy card that people down the hall from Haney's closed-door office could hear her.
Lanphier came across at the hearing as being contrite and surprised that her actions had caused anyone in the Treasurer's office (besides Haney, one presumes) distress. Haney came across as petty and shrewish.
Lanphier returns to work next Tuesday. She'll get back pay for all but the 3-day suspension period for the workdays she missed. She acknowledges that she and Haney have some fences to mend, but says she is eager to return to her job.
Nonetheless, Haney may not have to suffer Lanphier's return for long. Lanphier won the Democratic primary vote for Clerk of the District Court for Douglas County--and if she wins the general election in November, she can shake the dust of the Treasurer's office off her shoes and move on with a clear conscience.
Haney is up for re-election, too. I cannot help but think that she may not be long for the Treasurer's office herself if the majority of Douglas County voters got the same impression of her from the Civil Service Commission hearing that I did.
Good thing, too.
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