Do you think cities should be able to do this?

I recently saw on the Des Moines Register website (hit the link below for the article there) that the West Des Moines City Council is stipulating that the proposed Wal Mart Supercenter must be closed from 10pm to 8am monday to saturday and must close by 9pm sunday. Walmart is saying that this may not be legal to have those restrictions, and they are probably correct. When there are other stores not too far away that are open 24 hours, I would think that would be hard to justify. The store in question would be near Jordan Creek Mall, apparently some neighbors are concerned about trash blowing around off their lot and about the noise from trucks coming in at night. I would think they could as a compromise limit the hours deliveries could be made there. I know of a store in Cedar Rapids (not a walmart) that is in a residential area and is open 24 hours but has restrictions on when deliveries can be made, I believe they can't have them between 10pm and 6 or 7am.

What would probably happen if Walmart sues and loses is that they will build a store in a nearby suburb like Waukee or Urbandale or Clive. True it would not be in the mall but they could probably get close enough to it to do good business.

Here is the link:
http://www.dmregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050422/NEWS05/504220361/1001/NEWS

Not in my backyard, only in America

I decided to post in this story because it is a trend lately of that only in America syndrome "Not in my backyard". The particular story I linked to describes a neighborhood in Tampa fighting a plan to locate a fire station in their neighborhood because it might be noisy and lower property values. This is a classic American thing, you will have people bitch about something, in this case lack of fire protection or slow response time, but then when say "But not in my backyard". I understand wanting to protect your property values, but sometimes that is not the only consideration. And it might lower your insurance rates a little being that close to the station. Also, keep in mind that in many cities, at least where I live, if you call for an ambulance, a fire unit will respond (that is how it is everywhere I have lived) so if you ever need medical attention then they will be close, it just might save your life someday.

If you say that you need a new fire station as long as its not in your neighborhood, then you are a hypocrit. Also, protecting your property values is not the only thing that matters in the world today. That is why its called a community, rather than a "bunch of individuals living near each other".

Here is the particular story but you can apply it to most cities today about one thing or another:
http://news.tbo.com/news/MGBINR6PU7E.html

Website of the week, May week 1

This one is interesting, although it smells kind of like a union sponsored thing to me. The site is basically a walmart bashing site, so take the info while considering the source. There is actually a link on the site about a bill proposing to tax big box retailers because they say many of their employees end up on government assistance due to low wages. Not sure that would be legal, and I doubt it will pass but you never know.

Having worked for Wally World before and also one of their chief competitors, I know they have their issues, but the thing people don't seem to realize is that if you are that against them, just don't shop there. You hear tons of people against them and then later on they are there looking for bargains. Kind of silly don't you think?

Here is the link:
http://walmartwatch.com/

Website of the week - end of April

Okay, you have all heard of Google, but have you checked out there new mapping service they have? Now when you search for something, you have the option of looking at an aerial photo of it as well. I tried it out the other day, its pretty cool. Some of the maps are new and pretty good resolution and some are older and not as clear.

Here is the link, check it out:
http://maps.google.com/maps

The religious right trying to shape courts- YIKES!

In what I consider an ominous, though by no means surprising sign, some religious groups are now trying to find ways to shape and change courts to mold them to their liking. Besides the obvious part where the constitution mentions separation of church and state, this does not seem to bother conservatives one bit. Kind of funny that they don't apply their "slippery slope" logic that they use with gun controls to areas such as this isn't it?

Two religious leaders were part of a large convention where this was the topic, reigning in courts by having judges removed, or restricting funding or other ways. Does that scare anyone? Cutting funding to a judge or a particular court because we don't agree with their ruling? Isn't this sort of idiocity exactly why the founding fathers wrote the checks and balances into the constitution? One of the religious big wigs at the conference was one of my personal favorites, good ol James Dobson, founder of the group Focus on the Family (some have jokingly referred to it as focus on censorship and focus on homophobia). What is even more scary is you have leading conservative political figures such as Tom DeLay and Bill Frist there as well.

I am by no means surprised by such a conference though. It is common knowledge that the religous wrong (whoops I mean right) delivered the election win to the Republicans, you just had to wonder when the bill what come due. Looks like that time is just about here.


Here is the article from the LATimes via Yahoo (I would have made reference to the liberal media here but apparently that is getting a rest because it is just worn out!):
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=2026&ncid=716&e=30&u=/latimests/20050422/ts_latimes/2evangelicalswanttostripcourtsfunds

Speaker of the House Hastert okay with rule change

Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert, under a sea of intense criticism of his party for changing House ethics rules, allegedly to help embatted colleague Tom Dumbass, whoops I mean DeLay, has now agreed to change the rules back to the way they originally were. The House Ethics committee had already admonished good ol Tom 3 times last year (as smart as Tom is, he probably went around chanthing 3 Peat, 3 Peat, 3 time champs until someone told him this is actually a bad thing), so this year they rewrote the rules that basically made it harder to start an ethics investigation and they also dumped the chair of the ethics committe last year, Republican Joel Hefley of Colorado. Hefley was against changing the rules in the first place.

Now rumor has it the Democrats are still refusing to sit on the committee as some sort of protest, although I don't have an article to link to on that yet. If that is true and they continue to do that, this would be another example of them squandering an opportunity to look good to the people and instead look like they are obstructionists, not a good thing for them lately.

Here is the article from AP via Yahoo:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=512&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20050427/ap_on_go_co/ethics_committee

Do chemical plants have a giant bullseye on them?

A former homeland security adviser to President Bush is saying that the government is not paying enough attention to security at chemical plants in the US, which one report says there are close to 15000 in this country. This issue has become perhaps more urgent after the train wreck in the Carolinas that caused a large quantity of chlorine to be released, killing 10 people. Many, nearly all probably, of these plants have little or no security, and a terrorist could just release the stuff in the air and kill quite a few people if the plant is in a populated area. The report mentions that 100 of these plants are in highly populated areas. If a terrorist managed to steal a large quantity of it, perhaps in a truck as its being shipped, they could release it just about anywhere and kills hundreds or thousands of people.

Here is a link to the story if you want to read it:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=716&e=24&u=/usatoday/20050426/ts_usatoday/chemicalplantsvulnerabilityatissue

Do these rules really protect us?

In a controversial move, the TSA has decided that any truck drivers applying for a new hazardous materials license will be fingerprinted and undergo a background check before there license is approved. The article below mentions that the average cost of the license, with the new requirements is just under $100. One drawback of the background check is that it delays the licensing process and it costs money. One big questions is will anyone considering using chemical carrying trucks to launch an attack actually go through all this process to get their hands on such a truck or will they just steal it?

One security expert quoted in the article says something to the effect of we have to be careful or the laws we pass to make us more secure will harm the economy. It is also mentioned in the article that this licensing requirement may prompt truckers to move away from that segment to hauling loads that are not considered hazardous to avoid the hassle.

You can check out the article from USAToday via Yahoo here:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&ncid=716&e=24&u=/usatoday/20050420/ts_usatoday/truckersbristleatantiterrorrules

Sorry Rush ol' pal, you lose

The Florida Supreme Court recently voted not to hear an appeal by Rush Limbaugh that his privacy was violated when his medical records were seized during an investigation into his use of painkillers.

This case was unique it seemed because Rush and the ACLU were on the same side, something you may never see happen again.

I almost feel sorry for Rush. But somehow having scrips for 4000 painkillers, prescribed by 4 doctors over 6 months does sound a little fishy. Maybe some of them were for his giant ego?

Here is a link to the article on Yahoo (from AP) if you want to check it out:
http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050428/ap_on_en_ot/limbaugh_painkillers;_ylt=AkDV2eQbHrYNWbsqf.gj4fFG2ocA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl