Politics

Politics

There are 1,050 posts filed in Politics (this is page 69 of 105).

Level that playing field

I read with concern today that the U.S. Post Office is closing a local mail station because of to the shrinking volume of mail being sent. Cited for this decline was the rise of email, online bill payment, and the growing use of commercial shippers like FedEx and UPS.

It’s a shame that private enterprise is allowed to compete with the government. These companies are using their commercial nature to unfairly compete with the public entities. If only there was a law that reigned in the predatory nature of private enterprise … you know, level the playing field, so to speak. Wouldn’t that be great?

Pakistan knew

There is no way that Osama Bin Laden lived in a compound that secure in the neighborhood of a Pakistani military academy without the Pakistan government knowing about it.

I think it’s becoming more clear that Pakistan’s interests and America’s interests are often in conflict.

Nancy’s in

Nancy McFarlane

Today, District A city councilor Nancy McFarlane announced her bid to be mayor of Raleigh. Her decision comes a day after Mayor Charles Meeker announced he would not be seeking a second term.

I’ve known Nancy for a while now and expected this decision. She’s smart, funny, and deeply dedicated to serving the citizens of Raleigh. I believe she will serve Raleigh well as its next mayor!

Charles Meeker to step down

Charles Meeker in 2004


A press conference this morning confirmed what many already guessed: that Raleigh Mayor Charles Meeker would be stepping down at the end of this term. He stresses, though, that is isn’t planning to disappear!

Charles made some very good calls during his tenure as mayor, such as demolishing that butt-ugly old convention center in favor of the new one. This attracted business from out of down and opened up the beautiful Fayetteville Street for traffic and business, returning it to its rightful place as Raleigh’s “Main Street.” He guided the city through two droughts, a huge recession, and numerous storms. He led efforts to implement sustainability throughout the city projects, saving money in the long run. Accolades for our city piled up during his tenure.
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Woz TV

Why is it whenever I think up something cool to create, Steve Wozniak’s already beaten me to it?

This is from his open letter to the FCC defending Net Neutrality. Like me, Woz knows the value of open networks.

In the earliest days of satellite TV to homes, you would buy a receiver and pay a fee to get all the common cable channels. I had a large family (two adults, six kids) and felt like making every room a lot easier to wire for TV. Rather than place a satellite receiver in each room, I’d provide all the common channels on a normal cable, like cable companies do. In my garage, I set up three racks of satellite receivers. I paid for one receiver to access CNN. I paid for another to access TNT. I paid for others to access HBO and other such networks. I had about 30 or 40 channels done this way. I had modulators to put each of these channels onto standard cable TV channels on one cable, which was distributed throughout my home. I could buy any TV I liked and plug it in anywhere in the home and it immediately watch everything without having to install another satellite receiver in that room. I literally had my own cable TV ‘company’ in the garage, which I called Woz TV, except that I even kept signals in stereo, a quality step that virtually every cable company skipped.
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Another terrorist walks

Our political leaders like to brag about protecting us from terrorists, yet yesterday an actual terrorist walked away a free man yet again. Luis Posada Carriles, who carried out multiple bombings through his past work as a CIA agent, was acquitted of immigration fraud in court yesterday.

The feds have no trouble locking up people who pose no threat to anyone, like Bradley Manning, but can’t seem to keep the cuffs on actual terrorists like Carriles, a man who boasts about the blood on his hands.

GOP wants drug testing for unemployment benefits

The Republican party motto: We want government out
of our lives … and into everyone else’s!

A bill being discussed in the House could require applicants for unemployment benefits to submit to periodic drug testing.

HB 735 requires “periodic drug testing” for unemployment benefit applicants “to ensure that recipients are able and available to work.”

If the applicant’s former employer agrees to pay for the drug testing, the bill says, “Upon the initial filing of a claim for unemployment benefits, the individual must submit to and pass a drug test to establish that the individual is able and available for work.”

via Bill would require unemployment benefit applicants to submit to drug testing | NBC17.com.

Raleigh considers hiking parking fees

I was not a fan of the City of Raleigh’s move to remove free on-street parking from downtown streets. The move was designed to boost revenue for the parking decks downtown, but now a city report says that parking revenue is down and officials are looking again for ways to boost revenue.

One way being considered is to make the parking decks into paid spaces 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This has drawn the ire of some downtown businesses which depend on convenient parking for their customers.

I’ve considered affordable parking to be a key to Raleigh’s downtown renaissance. Should the city press too hard in its money collection, it risks putting the brakes on downtown redevelopment. I hope officials will instead wait until the economic fortunes improve before making any move to squeeze our more parking revenue.

Tom Fetzer is fighting cancer

I have often taken issue with his political views, but I was sorry to hear Tom Fetzer is fighting cancer.

From an idiot blogger: get well soon, Tom.

Tom Fetzer, the well-known North Carolina Republican and former mayor of Raleigh, is fighting cancer.

Fetzer, who will turn 56 this month, said Friday that he began feeling sick and run down about six weeks ago. After a CT scan found a mass in his abdomen, he was diagnosed two weeks ago with a form of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

He recently began chemotherapy treatments at Rex Cancer Center.

“Cancer is a random and unpredictable monster,” he said. “My doctors have given me great confidence I will be able to overcome this. They tell me this form of cancer responds well to chemotherapy.&”

via Former Raleigh mayor Fetzer is fighting cancer – State – NewsObserver.com.