For anyone neither residing in nor keeping track of the metro Omaha area, you've missed a fun bit of local politics over the past year or so. Omaha (the evil, greedy big city) has annexed Elkhorn (a tiny, rich, white, suburban, and to-the-west-of-Omaha town),which emphatically did not want to be annexed.
Just about everyone in Elkhorn who has expressed an opinion on the matter (i.e., everyone) has lots of venom to spit and blame to lay at the feet of Omaha in general, and Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey in particular. [So far, my favorite rant has been, "They get to vote in Iraq. We didn't get to vote on this!"--Ed.] And they universally have praised their own (now-former) mayor, city administrator, and legal advisor for their efforts to stave off the inevitable.
Well, here's some news for you Elkhornians (Elkhornites?): you're barking up the wrong tree. If your city officials hadn't wanted to run their town on the cheap, Elkhorn could have annexed enough people and territory itself in time to get Elkhorn's population over the 10,000 threshold. This would have triggered a statutory provision preventing Elkhorn from being taken over by Omaha--but Elkhorn's officials didn't try that until after Omaha had already started to annex Elkhorn. Every court ruling on the matter said that Elkhorn started too late. "You snooze, you lose."
It isn't as though Elkhorn's administrators didn't know what was coming. The topic of Elkhorn's being annexed has been around for years and years, at least ever since Omaha annexed Millard (in southwest Douglas County) back in the mid-70s. But Elkhorn's administrators did not want to absorb the extra costs of increasing their population to the statutory trigger level of 10,000. So they, like the GOP in the previous post, wanted to have their cake and eat it, too. When will people learn that that just doesn't happen?
Nor did the powers that be in Elkhorn want to puruse the same sort of "gentleman's agreement" that Omaha made several years ago with the city of Ralston. Omaha just about surrounds Ralston, except on Ralston's southern edge, which is the county line, but Omaha and Ralston authorities back in the 60s reached an understanding that Omaha would not try to annex Ralston. The agreement has held ever since. Apparently the decsion-makers in Elkhorn rebuffed Omaha's attempts to make a similar arrangement with them. Or so the news reports detailing the history of this mess reveal.
Moreover, the Elkhornites (Elkhornians?) bewailing the loss of "quality governmental services" they surely will suffer (now that they officially reside in Omaha) must not have noticed that Omaha managed to complete the transition in the middle of last Thursday's blizzard. Looked reasonably efficient to me!
Don't get me wrong. I am no fan of Omaha. That's one of the major reasons I live in Bellevue. Besides, Bellevue had its own annexation scare from Omaha back in the 60s--until the US Supreme Court ruled that Nebraska's state constitution prevented "cities of the first class" [which refers to population size, not quality.--Ed] from annexing across county lines. Elkhorn had the misfortune to be located in the same county, Douglas, as Omaha, and not across a county line, a la Bellevue in Sarpy County.
This distinction is one that Elkhorn's administrative and legal advisors either missed or ignored. So why aren't more Elkhornians (Elkhornites?) complaining about that? Could it be that they are infected by the dreaded fuzzy thinking virus? Oh, no, no, no, no--yes.
Wednesday, March 07, 2007
The GOP Ain't Got Nothin' On Marie Antoinette
It's called having your cake and eating it, too--and the GOP has taken that talent to previously unimagined levels of hypocrisy.
I see that Ann Coulter has been spouting filth at official GOP functions again. She called John Edwards a faggot at the GOP C-PAC fund-raiser last week. There was a great deal of consternation amongst the talking heads to the effect that it's way past time the GOP ought to renounce any claims to her and her obnoxious ideas. So I am again going to rail against fuzzy thinking.
The GOP is never going to renounce Coulter. This way, the party officially can say "tsk tsk" and "isn't that awful" . . . while at the very same time getting the support of the ignorant bigots to whom she appeals. So everyone who presses the GOP to renounce her, denounce her, and otherwise dilute her venom is going to lose. (Hence their fuzzy thinking in trying to press the GOP to do so anyway.)
This GOP behavior is worse than gross. It's truly heinous.
But it won't change. Look how long the GOP has used Roe v. Wade to whip up frenzy amongst the cultural conservatives. They'll never really push or pack the Supreme Court to overturn it. It's too useful a tool right where it is. It gives them an instant issue that gets people's minds off the real scandals of the day, like the illegal outing of Valerie Plame and the fact that Dubya has no intention of living up to his administration's oft-repeated promise to can anyone involved with that particular bit of skullduggery. Like the entire war in Iraq. Like letting al Quaida reestablish itself in Afghanistan. Like the mess with the conditions at Walter Reed--and most probably every other stateside military health-care facility that's on the base closing list. Like the administration's efforts to get everyone frothing at the mouth about the risks to us from Iran, so that we have an excuse to invade Tehran, too.
I could continue. But it's just too depressing. I'd go on a chocolate binge, but then I could be accused of trying to have my cake and eat it, too. So Ill just soak my head. Calgon, take me away!
I see that Ann Coulter has been spouting filth at official GOP functions again. She called John Edwards a faggot at the GOP C-PAC fund-raiser last week. There was a great deal of consternation amongst the talking heads to the effect that it's way past time the GOP ought to renounce any claims to her and her obnoxious ideas. So I am again going to rail against fuzzy thinking.
The GOP is never going to renounce Coulter. This way, the party officially can say "tsk tsk" and "isn't that awful" . . . while at the very same time getting the support of the ignorant bigots to whom she appeals. So everyone who presses the GOP to renounce her, denounce her, and otherwise dilute her venom is going to lose. (Hence their fuzzy thinking in trying to press the GOP to do so anyway.)
This GOP behavior is worse than gross. It's truly heinous.
But it won't change. Look how long the GOP has used Roe v. Wade to whip up frenzy amongst the cultural conservatives. They'll never really push or pack the Supreme Court to overturn it. It's too useful a tool right where it is. It gives them an instant issue that gets people's minds off the real scandals of the day, like the illegal outing of Valerie Plame and the fact that Dubya has no intention of living up to his administration's oft-repeated promise to can anyone involved with that particular bit of skullduggery. Like the entire war in Iraq. Like letting al Quaida reestablish itself in Afghanistan. Like the mess with the conditions at Walter Reed--and most probably every other stateside military health-care facility that's on the base closing list. Like the administration's efforts to get everyone frothing at the mouth about the risks to us from Iran, so that we have an excuse to invade Tehran, too.
I could continue. But it's just too depressing. I'd go on a chocolate binge, but then I could be accused of trying to have my cake and eat it, too. So Ill just soak my head. Calgon, take me away!
Quo Vadis?
Did anyone watch the Discovery Channel special last Sunday about The Lost Tomb of Jesus? I am very much of two minds about the entire subject. I am fascinated by anything archaeological that either tends to prove or disprove Bible-recounted events. But I hate sloppy reasoning and hype even more.
The one fact that no one either in the "documentary" or in the following panel discussion acknowledged was that no matter how good a statistical probability is, it's still merely a statistic. It is most emphatically NOT proof.
Remember, and as Mark Twain so cogently noted, "[t]here are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
A 1 in 600 chance that the tomb in question was not that of the Biblical Jesus and his earthly family means that there is still a real possibility that said tomb is not Jesus's. The closest anyone came to recognizing this is when the statistician who compiled the statistics reminded everyone that his calculations are only as good as the assumptions he used are true and complete.
I will continue to follow developments and comment on them as the need arises. It truly is fascinating from every angle--not to mention that the only person on the discussion panel who had any trouble accepting that the tomb might truly be Jesus's own was the Protestant fundamentalist. He kept arguing that the tomb couldn't be Christ's because then the Biblical accounts of the Resurrection would be incorrect. The Catholic priest on the panel had a much more nuanced and mature thought-process in his interpretation. For him, if it does turn out to be Christ's tomb, it means our understanding of the Bible may have been lacking, not the Word of God itself.
But the university professor had the best take on the entire subject: she noted that no one should accept anything passively. Christians have a duty to use their God-given critical thinking skills to evaluate the quality of the science behind any claims made about how an archaeological find may change the basis of their faith.
Ted Koppel did yeoman's work moderating an often-contentious group of panelists--the most contentious of whom were the documentary film-makers themselves. They just didn't want to hear that there possibly could be any question as to the accuracy of their interpreation of their finds. They obviously forgot that statistics are not proof.
The one fact that no one either in the "documentary" or in the following panel discussion acknowledged was that no matter how good a statistical probability is, it's still merely a statistic. It is most emphatically NOT proof.
Remember, and as Mark Twain so cogently noted, "[t]here are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics."
A 1 in 600 chance that the tomb in question was not that of the Biblical Jesus and his earthly family means that there is still a real possibility that said tomb is not Jesus's. The closest anyone came to recognizing this is when the statistician who compiled the statistics reminded everyone that his calculations are only as good as the assumptions he used are true and complete.
I will continue to follow developments and comment on them as the need arises. It truly is fascinating from every angle--not to mention that the only person on the discussion panel who had any trouble accepting that the tomb might truly be Jesus's own was the Protestant fundamentalist. He kept arguing that the tomb couldn't be Christ's because then the Biblical accounts of the Resurrection would be incorrect. The Catholic priest on the panel had a much more nuanced and mature thought-process in his interpretation. For him, if it does turn out to be Christ's tomb, it means our understanding of the Bible may have been lacking, not the Word of God itself.
But the university professor had the best take on the entire subject: she noted that no one should accept anything passively. Christians have a duty to use their God-given critical thinking skills to evaluate the quality of the science behind any claims made about how an archaeological find may change the basis of their faith.
Ted Koppel did yeoman's work moderating an often-contentious group of panelists--the most contentious of whom were the documentary film-makers themselves. They just didn't want to hear that there possibly could be any question as to the accuracy of their interpreation of their finds. They obviously forgot that statistics are not proof.
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