Media Speculates About Another Bush In The Presidency

Jeb Bush

In an election year where the GOP is looking to take back all the marbles, media speculation has begun to heat up over the question of whether or not to send yet another Bush into the U.S. Presidency. Many media outlets and pundits alike have been taking about how Jeb Bush could be the go-to guy in the 2012 election for the Republicans. An ABC quote from news writer Byron Wolf:

Charlie Rangel Generates Most Obvious Headline This Week

Click to Embiggen

As I was clicking through my Google News page looking for something to talk about, I found this gem of a headline at Washingtonpost.com: "Democrats worry Rangel's ethics trial will hurt party in midterm elections". Well I would so considering his supposed non-payment of taxes and so forth. Here's an excerpt from the article:

10 Myths About The Bush Tax Cuts

I found this interesting research piece on Heritage.org. Don't worry, they don't all defend Bush to the last man. I thought that this piece did a good job explaining the reasoning behind the deficit Bush left behind, and the reasoning behind why most people think it was because of the tax cuts that there was a deficit. This piece doesn't defend Bush, but rather shows that it wasn't the tax cuts that left the $247 billion budget deficit, rather spending increases.

3 Reasons Independence Day Is Still A Great Movie

Welcome To Earth

 I've got a lot to say about why you should bother renting or buying this and making an evening of this movie. Or a morning if you're a fat lazy slob like I know I can be.

I'll just give you three simple reasons to glue yourself to the couch for this.

Movies. Coolest Invention Evar

Courtesy The Bioscopic

Since I've been blogging, I've wanted to write about things where pure opinion matters. I don't have a ton of interests. However, movies happen to be one of my few "things". Ever since the inception(pun completely intended) of movies in the early twentieth century, they have captured the imagination of the world. Some of us take this interest to near obsession, like me. I'm so much of a junkie that I procure movies from many a source. I just can't wait for the movie I want when I want it. F.Y.E and Neflix are vendors I patronize pretty often. I recommend them, especially if you're trying to find something obscure. Best Buy has great prices sometimes for new releases. But sometimes I wish Circuit City didn't get run out of business. But I digress.

Shallow Water Drilling Permit Has Been Issued

I guess it's an oil rig.

This particular story caught my eye today. It seems that the Interior Dept. has issued a permit to drill for natural gas in a shallow water area. Here is an excerpt from the Wall Street Journal:

The Interior Department has approved a permit to drill a well in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico, the first such clearance since new safety regulations took effect following the BP PLC spill.

Russian Spies? Now It's Cuban Spies

It sounds like the FBI has been busy the last few year in counter-intelligence.

A former State Department analyst, a privileged great-grandson of Alexander Graham Bell who became a spy for Cuba, defended his decades of work for Fidel Castro before being sentenced Friday to life in prison.

Government Wants To Know How Fat You Are

It looks like the Feds are now going to force health care providers to not only monitor, but report on your body-mass index so that they can "encourcage" you to loose weight. They even put a deadline on receiving ratings from all citizens by 2014. I'm not going to rant to you about how intrusive, and illegal, this is.

Well, okay, yes I will.

Don't Forget About The Upcoming Primary Elections!

It seems that at this point of an election year people, even junkies like myself loose interest in the races for office being run; especially at the local level. Here in Salt Lake County we have two very important races being run on the republican side: The senate race between Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee and the Salt Lake County Counsel race between Richard Snelgrove and Winston Wilkinson. I believe that the candidates are very different on the issues for both races, despite the fact that all candidates are relatively very far right conservatives.

Memories From The Heat of Arizona- UPDATED LINKS

As some who are acquainted with me know I'm a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and as such I chose to endeavor upon fulfilling two years of full-time service for the church preaching the tenets of my religion. I was sent to Tucson, Arizona. Part of my assigned area included the Gila Valley, and area north west of Tucson. The valley, settled by many of the same pioneers who followed Brigham Young to the Salt Lake Valley, were sent all the way to Southern Arizona to settle as part of an enormous plan to settle the west. These pioneers put down roots in the Gila Valley, and have been there since the 1850's. Much of the area is still thickly populated by active LDS members, but has since found much diversity both religously and racially.

2 Things You Should Know About Arizona's Immigration Law

After carefully reading through the Arizona law and reviewing many different sources across the web, I've found two things that you need to know about the new immigration law that passed a few weeks ago.

Space Shuttle Inches Closer To Extinction

It's been big news in recent months that the President wants to take the Space program in a new direction. Because of that, the Shuttle program has found itself on the chopping block. But I find myself digressing from my main subject, and that is that the Space Shuttle Atlantis is making it's very last scheduled flight into space tomorrow afternoon. I've gone through and found some links to follow about the history of the shuttle Atlantis and some spotting times when you can find the shuttle and the ISS(international space station) in the sky.

Most Americans Think That English Should Be Official Language- UPDATE BELOW!

After searching the web for some interesting news for you, I came across a great new Rasmussen Poll, stating that 89% of Americans now think that English should be the United States official language. They also report that 10 % believe that it would be bigotry to allow that to be that case, whereas the rest rejected that idea.

3 Pieces of News That Will Interest Any Utahn

1. Recent political activity, especially here in Utah, has been making national attention. Lot of questions have been flying around the internet about the recent convention failure of Bob Bennett to win his party's nomination. Questions like "Are the tea-partiers this strong?" and "The convention system in Utah disenfranchises regular voters. Why does Utah still use it?" I've already given my answer here. Here is an excerpt from one of the more popular articles on the subject published in USAToday.com:

Utah Political Memes

Today has been a big day for Utah politics, no matter which way you lean, if you lean at all. The State Delegates decided to oust Sen. Bob Bennett from office, and sent Tim Bridgewater and Mike Lee into a primary to take place on June 22nd. But of course, if you're reading this you most likely know the convention results. What I want to address are a couple of political memes that I've been seeing crop up in most discussions about politics here in Utah.

Paint.net

So today I've gotten myself interested in Paint.net, a powerful and free alternative to Photoshop. I've just been playing around with it, trying to get the hang of it. I really don't have a knack for graphic design or art, but for my own purposes, I think I've done okay. Here is a sampling:

Salt Lake County Republican Nominating Convention

In my own normal fashion, it has taken a couple of days to gather my thoughts on the subject. No doubt many of you who found my post dug up all the stuff Deseret News and the SL Trib and were disappointed by the lack of thorough reporting. As a county delegate who attended, I can report on at least those portions I was part of.

Most Americans Now Believe Scientists Disagree About Climate Change

I was pleasantly surprised to learn this in a new Rasmussen Poll today. I'm among those that not only question whether all scientist believe global warming is true, but that it's more farce than anything else. How do you explain the worst winter most Americans have seen in a long time? Give the poll a read. Well worth it.

Photo is courtesy angryconservative.com.

Utah State Elections- 2010; County Counsel At Large Race

As I've mentioned in one of my recent posts, I'm now a County Delegate for the Republican party in Salt Lake County, Utah. My job is to help select who will go on the ballot against the Democratic counterparts in the general election. To do this, all of the county delegates will meet in convention and vote. Whoever gets 60% of the vote will move to the general election in November, while those races that are closer than a 60-40 split go to a primary before the general election.

Now that thats out of the way, I can get down to what information I have for you today. First off, I will be covering the elections in the state of Utah all the way to the end, but from a slightly different angle, that of a delegate. Even though there are those who could attend certain meetings to see candidates with me, many will not have face to face contact with any candidate running for office regardless, let alone even know who is who. My goal here is to shed some light on the county-wide elections for the most part, all the way to November. I will also be covering state-wide elections so far as I can gather reliable information from those that I know are State Delegates, in order to try to paint a better picture of the candidates in those races.

In this last week, I've been somewhat busy, and so have neglected to post. Fear not. This post is not "shot from the hip" as it were. In between my personal and professional responsibilities, I've been devoting much of my time to researching and meeting with various candidates for county-wide and offices.

I would like to share some positive experiences with you from the past week or so.

The County Counsel At Large seat B is up for grabs. I've had the opportunity to have face to face conversations with Richard Snelgrove and Winston Wilkinson. Both are admirable and upstanding gentlemen.

Wilkinson has beat himself a very difficult campaign path. He has set up between twenty and thirty small-scale meetings with county delegates in various parts of the county. This is a large effort for a constituency relatively small at this point because it's only county delegates he is campaigning to at this point. These meetings take place as more of a discussion than a meeting with a speaker. Wilkinson has given the delegates a chance to share ideas with him, have frank discussion about possible solutions to problems and so forth. More to the point though, Wilkinson has shown a record of listening to all sides of a problem, something of an asset in a county counsel seat. I had a great time at his meeting, and enjoyed getting to know him.

Richard Snelgrove is also working hard at gaining votes. Snelgrove has gone in a somewhat opposite direction with his campaign, though equally difficult to handle. In one of his meetings that I attended, he gathered as many delegates as he could together at a movie theater, where The Blind Side was shown for us. That was a great treat. Most who attended had the chance to speak with Snelgrove personaly. In the theater, Snelgrove spoke and answered questions. And all around enjoyable experience. It is also noteworthy to state that he funded this event out of his own pocket.

I'm going to say, however, that at this point, I am favoring Wilkinson. I liked the chance to have a smaller group and more face to face discussion. I am glad to say that more of my questions were answered better, and more clearly by Wilkinson than Snelgrove(I asked the same questions). The question that I asked was,"To use an example as a preface, look at all the construction and road work in the county. Much is done by the cities themselves, many county projects are in progress, and even more state road work has lots of road torn up. They all have their own planning and building schedule, and coordination between them all seems non existent. This is only one symptom of the same problem, and that is intergovernmental communication. What do you plan to do to reign it all in?" A long winded and tough question. Snelgrove had his campaign points, and stuck to them. Meme's like "fiscal responsibility" and "trimming the fat" followed by "I don't know yet, but I'll look into it" satisfied me. They were very honest answers. However, Wilkinson gave me something better to work with. He said that he has actually met with a majority of mayors in the valley to discuss the importance of a strong working relationship, including meetings and reports to and with one another. He then said that it was a crucial responsibility of the county counsel to have those relationships with the cities. I thought that was far and away a better answer.

I have another meeting tomorrow, this time with all of the Republican candidates running for county-wide office. I'll get a post up tomorrow night, but not this long winded, I hope.

LDS General Conference FTW!

General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a bi-annual affair, something that most Latter Day Saints look forward to from the time the most recent one ends. I find this true for myself as an active Latter Day Saint(LDS).

Many people find us "mormons" to be strange. I saw a short film produced by a couple of LDS guys that proved the point. Some people they talked to confused us with the Amish. Most of the misconceptions are not true. I've heard some crazy idea's about us; no, we don't have horns, and no, true mormons don't have multiple wives.

What I want to mention today, however, is something that most people can find some common ground with. That is our General Conference. Most other religions can find some similarities with us in the fact that every religion comes together to listen to their leaders. People come from all over the world to witness conference. I have some friends who brought people they knew from Fiji all the to Utah for conference. So there is another similarity. We feel it paramount to give heed to those we know are men of God, even if that means traveling long distances.

But something that is desperately needed in this day and age is reliable counsel. We receive counsel and ideas from all sides these days. We have the internet, TV with thousands of channels and so much music that we don't know what to do with it. We need someone we know we can rely on. That someone is God. I know that many people don't think that the idea of God is needed these days, with all this technology and so called "new science". For me and nearly 14 million other Latter Day Saints, we feel that God is a reality. And so do some few billion other Christians, Catholics, Jews and Muslims.

General Conference, more than anything else, is a time when we Latter Day Saints can receive counsel that comes directly from God, given to us by men he has chosen to lead us, men he has chosen as prophets and apostles. Knowing that these men are what we believe them to be, we can rely on them to help us through these tough and perilous times. It is counsel for our day. They help us to understand the scriptures. For these reasons and many others, we look forward every six months to General Conference.

Mormon.org