State Sen. Vivian Davis Figures announced today that she will challenge Sen. Jeff Sessions for his seat in the US Senate.
In some recent polls, Sen. Hillary Clinton is shown to be making some impressive gains over three of the Republican frontrunners in Alabama.
Is this even newsworthy anymore? I mean, isn’t it pretty well common knowledge that the CIA dropped the ball on Al-Qaida before 9/11? In fact, now that I think of it, it didn’t really get much better after 9/11, given its intelligence work in the lead-up to the Iraq war. Granted, much of that blame must fall on the Bush administration, but it’s still kind of late for the “CIA blew it” stories.
Apparently, some leaked documents say that the CIA knew they blew it. Great.
Michael
On at least three separate occasions last year, toilets made by Toto, Japan’s largest toilet manufacturer, have suddenly burst into flames.
No one was injured in the incidents, although having your toilet spontaneously combust must be somewhat disconcerting.
Company spokesperson Emi Tanaka helpfully explained that the fire would have been “just under your buttocks.” Nice to know.
At least 23 other toilets were reported to have smoke coming fron the seat.
The problem was apparently in the wiring of the toilet’s heated seats, a popular feature in Japan. The affected toilets belonged to the “Z series” line of luxury toilets, which cost up to $300.
Michael
via - The Japan Times
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I can scarcely imagine a more dramatic scandal than the one that is emerging as a result of the bridge that collapsed in Minneapolis on August 1st.
Apparently, officials at MnDOT knew the bridge was dangerous, they knew it was headed for a possibly catastrophic collapse, and yet, in the end, they did nothing. The department had started detailed planning on how to fix the bridge, and yet they ultimately put those plans on hold, citing budget and traffic concerns. The cost Minnesota paid in the end was much, much higher than the $2 million it would have cost to fix the bridge; thirteen human lives.
Unbelievable.
Michael
via - Daily Kos
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There have been rumblings about this for some time now, but today a formal complaint was filed against Sen. Thompson with the FEC by Lane Hudson, the former Democratic staffer who broke Foleygate. Hudson posted his complaint on a new blog.
All I can say is, it’s about freakin’ time. In my view, Sen. Thompson has been in flagrant violation of the law for a long, long time now. The campaign finance law allows candidates to raise enough money to “test the waters” of a campaign before committing to run, thus coming under the jurisdiction of the campaign finance laws. But the law only allows candidates to raise “amounts reasonably required for exploratory activities.” Sen. Thompson has a full campaign staff, and has raised millions of dollars in campaign funds. Clearly, he’s not just “testing the waters.”
My question is, what’s he got to hide? The main advantage I can see in remaining “technically” not in the race is that Sen. Thompson doesn’t have to report his finances to the FEC, right? So, why doesn’t he want to do so?
My suspicion is that Sen. Thompson, being a former lobbyist himself, has received ample money from special interest groups, and would rather not be attacked over it just quite yet.
Michael
via - Bloggernista
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For anyone who’s interested in sitting down with the Right’s favorite Mormon, it’ll only run you a cool grand; unless of course you want your picture taken. Photos with Romney and his wives [He only has one. -Ed.] [What's the point of being a Mormon, then? -MD] are running $2,300. They’re using expensive film, I guess.
In the interest of fairness, I should point out that this fundraiser is the result of Gov. Romney having the decency to cancel a political fundraiser in the wake of the tornado that destroyed Enterprise, AL last March.
Michael
via - AL.com
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Representing the poorest district in one of the poorest states does not normally bode well for a candidate’s fundraising prospects. Of course, don’t tell that to Rep. Artur Davis, who has increased his war chest by 72 percent in the last three months.
Rep. Davis was able to achieve this impressive increase after landing a seat on the highly influential House Committee on Ways and Means. Ways and Means is considered the most powerful committee in the House, and special interest donors are more than willing to line the pockets of its members.
Rep. Davis has more that 600 thousand bucks currently in his fund-raising account, a figure bested in the Alabama delegation only by Rep. Spencer Bachus, who represents the much wealthier Vestavia Hills district.
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| The Alabama 7th Congressional District |
One may be tempted to wonder what Rep. Davis will do with all that money; after all, Rep. Davis represents the ridiculously gerrymandered Alabama 7th, and he ran unopposed in the last election. Rep. Davis has said that he may consider running for governor or a senate seat in the next election, or he may use the money to help finance other Democratic candidates in tighter races.
The Alabama 7th includes my home town of Tuscaloosa, as well as inner-city Birmingham and loads and loads of poor rural counties.
Michael
via - Al.com
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Brian Sanford, a former inspector for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, expressed doubts about the usefulness of the department’s aerial surveillance program when it was started in 2005, comparing Director Trey Glenn to “Homer Simpson.” The program has come under fire recently after Governor Bob Riley took a political trip using the program’s plane.
In blog entries from that time period, Sanford wrote:
“What’s so crazy about the whole thing is that our new leader [Director Trey Glenn] wants to get us our very own plane! The State budget is already meager and our department’s particular slice of the pie is probably the smallest. Raises are few and far between and we don’t even have any of the testing equipment in our section that I learned how to use this week. Yet we’re now going to buy a plane? All I can do is imagine that Homer Simpson has taken over our agency and his first thought on how to solve everything was to put people in planes!”
Sanford also explained how the program worked:
“[Director Trey Glenn] decided we need to conduct aerial reconnaissance in order to locate unpermitted activity. The order came down yesterday apparently, and ever since, they’ve been in a mad rush to slap together a plan for tomorrow. Two of our people will be up in a plane, on loan from another State agency, while four of us will be on the ground in our own, separate vehicles, equipped with GPS units and laptops. When the plane spots an area they want us to check out, they’re going to radio us the lat and long, which we then have to input into an Excel spreadsheet and then import to a MS Streets program to map out where it is and how to get to it.”
When asked about the possibility of using Google Earth, raised in a post on Left In Alabama, Sanford said that he explored the possibility while working at the department, and ruled it out at the time because of the time-sensitive nature of the job:
“Google Earth, in this case, is not practical. I’m not sure how often it’s updated now, but I doubt it’s any more often than it was two years ago. The purpose of the aerial recon was to catch unpermitted construction and mining in areas that wouldn’t be easily observable from roads. While mining jobs last a long time, construction will often be complete within a few months time, during which sedimentation runoff damage to streams and rivers will have occurred. Therefore, real-time information is necessary to find such offending sites, and Google Earth couldn’t provide that. I know, because I suggested it, and got permission to download and examine it. I compared it to known, permitted sites, and the satellite imagery was not up-to-date.”
Sanford also said that Alabama’s laws need to be changed to better protect the environment. Unlike inspectors in other states, such as Georgia, ADEM inspectors lack the authority to immediately shut down job sites as soon as violations of the state’s environmental regulations are discovered. Rather, the violations must be reported back to the department, and work their way through several layers of bureaucracy before action can be taken. Often, by the time inspectors are empowered to act, the damage to the environment has already been done.
Michael
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While I understand why Democrats in Alabama would be upset about the Governor using a plane that was bought for use by the state environmental agency to take a political trip, I don’t see why it has to spill over into questioning the need for the plane period.
In this post, a commenter at Left in Alabama says, “Sounds to me like the plane doesn’t save any ground trips, and Google Earth shows plenty of detail to figure out which backroads to take.”
One of my best friends worked for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management, and actually did surveying using the plane. The plane isn’t used just for “figuring out which backroads to take.” While it would be nice if every construction company in Alabama followed the environmental regulations every time they decided to build, the fact is many of them don’t. Since self-reporting by the companies is often a joke, the plane is a valuable tool for spotting sites that need to be inspected.
Incidentally, Gov. Riley’s trip couldn’t have been all that posh; my friend threw up the first time he rode in the tiny plane.
Michael
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