Don't Back Down

Last week, one of the more unlikely referendums hit the ballot. Of course, if you're from the Charlotte area, you know that voting for anything in the form of a referendum doesn't mean much anyway, as the city may just override your vote, as they did with the arena. And yes, I know that they put forth a different plan than the one that was voted on, so from a purely technical perspective, it didn't have to go to vote again. It's the principle here. I fully understand the idea that what actually happened isn't what was voted on, and I also fully understand that is why Lynn Wheeler isn't on the council any more. People actually decided to stand up and say that they cared.

So last week, everyone had a chance to say their piece again, this time in regards to transit. The original 1998 legislation was sold to the citizens, saying that the half-cent sales tax would fund a billion-dollar project to build light rail around the city. In fact, the first leg of that undertaking has become a $462.7 billion boondoggle down South Boulevard, and opponents of the plan are trying to revoke the half-cent sales tax, mostly because as much as 70% of the tax doesn't go to pay for trains, it goes to buses. Perhaps surprisingly, it made it to the ballot.

Of course, we live in Charlotte, so it's never quite that easy.

Read "Bizarre Ballot Wording Gives Transit Tax Victory" »

With the primaries just a bit over two weeks away, I thought it important to mention a lesson that I learned slightly after the last election: The importance of timely material. More specifically the importance of the timely arrival of material.

If you're like myself and millions of others out there, as an election draws near, you are very likely bombarded by mailings and phone calls to tell you to vote for someone - or, perhaps, to not vote for someone. There's a very likely chance that you simply deposit the mail in the trash (or, if you're a good neighbor, in the recycle bin) without ever looking at it. This is generally what I do.

But one piece of mail caught my attention after the last election, and I thought it worth mentioning. I think that just about everyone will find it interesting.

Read "The Importance of Timing on Election Day" »

Obviously, there are those of you out there (I'm talking about the people who actually care what the American Community Survey may represent) who do read before they sign. But these days, when buying a house requires a lawyer because of the monstrous stack of documents that would take you months to read through, and even applying for a credit card can require hours of reading if you really read every single word, do you read everything before you put your name on the dotted line?

Apparently there is a significant percentage of people here in Charlotte who don't (I suspect that there are plenty in other places too).

For those who haven't been paying attention, it's recently been verified that the petition to force a referendum to repeal the transit tax (enacted in 1998) has 48,000 valid signatures, which means a November vote on the issue is likely. So why is it an issue if people pay attention to what they are signing? Because it seems that those who asked for people to sign the petition didn't actually tell folks what they were signing, and many of those who did sign didn't bother to read. But it's also apparent that many of the people who voted for the original tax in 1998 did so based on what they were told, rather than reading the fine print as well, so the proverbial knife can cut both ways.

Read "Do You Read Before You Sign?" »

It is no secret that one of the things that elected officials do is pat each other on the back. But they also pat other people on the back. If you have spent any time looking around, you've undoubtedly seen a resolution of some sort of another that in the end does nothing more than waste a bunch of time.

The state legislatures are especially fond of these. When I lived in California, you could find these resolutions about anywhere. I was pretty young, and I'll admit to not looking into it much, but I think you can get a resolution passed by the state for just about anything if you know the right person to ask. It seems that this even extends to the county level, if you live in Mecklenburg.

Read "Resolving to Elect Better Leaders" »

I'll admit that I'm a white guy who is all too rapidly approaching middle age and doesn't get a lot of things, and at the risk of sounding even more clueless than usual, one of those is why so many people are against an official language for the United States. Unlike a lot of people, I really don't have a problem with it and why it makes news when people want to create an official language really baffles me.

Of course my support comes from the assumption that the official language is English. If the official language is Albanian, I might take issue. Nothing against the Albanians, mind you - I just don't speak the language. It would also seem to make sense that the language of the majority would be the most logical choice, but then our government and logic don't always go together, do they?

Read "Proposing an Official Language" »

A bill has been introduced to kill the penny, mostly because it actually costs more than a penny to produce a penny. That makes sense, and I'm all for it. It's not like you can do much with pennies these days anyway, so I say go for it.

Read "Kill the Penny" »

I've always thought the idea of an amendment to ban the burning of flags was a bit idiotic, since you're actually supposed to burn flags in order to appropriately destroy them. But Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert, don't you know) stepped up to the plate recently to set forth why it really makes little sense. Perhaps our "dedicated public servants have finally solved the problems of crime, drugs, war, poverty, terrorism, healthcare, immigration, and the mystery of why our children are such idiots compared to Norwegians". Yay!

Read "Scott Adams on Flag Burning" »

Hrm. Perhaps I'm not a Libertarian after all. Maybe I'm a Pirate*.

*No, probably not. But at least if we're going to be giving up all our money we can talk well and have eye patches and good parties and the like.

In the latest twist of the Iraq saga, Army officials have apparently banned the use of any armor other than that issued by the military. That's just stupid.

I appreciate that you don't want someone to feel that they are safe when they are not. I appreciate that something defective may cause some sort of harm. But when you can't provide the armor, you can't tell them that they'll just have to do without.

I am so proud. I just received a message from Congressman Robin Hayes. Who would have thought that he would called me personally? I sure wouldn't have expected it! Even stranger, when he called, the caller ID came up as a Private Name and Private Number.

Read "Congressman Robin Hayes just called me!" »

I heard that America was founded for the people. I don't think that's true now, and I don't think it's been true for a long, long time.

We have odds on American Idol. We have groups of people who band together every week to buy lottery tickets in the hopes that they are the ones who will strike it rich. Yet gambling is bad, says our leaders. Don't they work for us?

Read "What happened to the people?" »

Marty wants to know how I feel about the draft. Well, Marty, unfortunately, I don't know. Or perhaps that is fortunately, because the draft has not been active in my lifetime, at least not to that point where I was able to talk. So I don't really have an opinion on the matter. But I'm sure I can come up with one.

Read "What about the draft?" »