Anyone wondering exactly what Nick Clegg has been up to since not being elected David Cameron's fag deputy need wonder no more - he's been busy setting up yourfreedom.hmg.gov.uk.
The site is supposedly an attempt to find out what useless and unnecessary laws the public would like to see removed from the statute book. Plenty of scope for reasoned debate there, we'd have thought.
Luckily the site is already attracting some of the internet's finest minds. Impeccably reasoned and correctly spelled calls for castration of paedophiles, stopping IVF on the NHS and repealing laws forcing motorcyclists to wear helmets have all been made already.
Meanwhile, submissions supporting stronger legal rights for people who batter burglars or bugger animals are also gaining support.
Meanwhile, submissions supporting stronger legal rights for people who batter burglars or bugger animals are also gaining support.
Luckily the wisdom of crowds has also brought action on that burning issue of the day - necro-bestiality. Alan Penweather, who is concerned what might happen to his cat after its death, notes that while UK law bans sex with dead people there is no such law stopping people shagging unalive animals.
Clearly Penweather's concerns will have to be weighed up against Cooper23's demand that the coalition "Remove the law preventing incest and bestiality". We can only assume that Cooper is related to, and fancies, some animals.
To be fair the site does seem to be popular - we assume that's why it's crawling between pages right now.
Presumably the site replaces the e-petitions service, currently suspended, which used to be the website government mainly ignored when writing legislation.
Get involved yourself here.
In other news it would be hard to make up... Tony Blair is to be awarded the National Constitution Center's Liberty Medal. He is presumably an example of someone who has "strived to secure the blessings of liberty to people the world over".
That's the same Tony Blair who, just to examine his local record, made David Blunkett Home Secretary, looked the other way on internment and torture and restricted trial by jury. Blair won for his work in Northern Ireland.
Posted by: Fred ||
07/01/2010 10:33 ||
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Give New Jersey Gov. Christopher J. Christie credit - he got the state budget he wanted, closing an $11 billion deficit without a statewide tax increase.
That's a stunning turnaround in a state with chronically high taxes and runaway spending. Republican Christie's my-way-or-the-highway approach steamrolled Democrats in the Legislature, who offered few good alternatives to Christie's cuts.
Today, the Legislature will begin to address the other half of Christie's plan - a proposed constitutional amendment limiting annual property-tax increases to 2.5 percent. Without it, the governor knows, towns and school districts whose aid he cut significantly will be tempted to raise local taxes far higher.
While most taxpayers are rooting for Christie, it must be acknowledged that his $29.4 billion budget pushes some major problems down the road.
This is a budget balanced on the backs of lower-income residents, and it relies on some onetime gimmicks in the tradition of past governors of both parties.
For example, Christie "saved" $3.1 billion simply by not contributing what the state owes to the public employees' pension funds. New Jersey is already facing a crisis of $174 billion in unfunded pension liabilities. That daunting figure assumes that the pension funds are gaining a modest annual return of 3.5 percent on investments. So far this year, the stock market is down more than 5 percent.
Christie has already banned pensions for part-timers and reduced benefits for new hires, and he wants further reforms. But failing to contribute even one dime to the funds isn't part of the solution. One of the five funds could run out of money by 2013.
The governor also chose to cut $848 million in property-tax rebates, which were poor policy.
But Christie vetoed a reasonable proposal by Democrats to reinstitute a tax increase on residents earning more than $1 million per year. Those families will get a tax break this year averaging $40,000, while low-income residents are getting hit with cuts to housing, child care, health care, and more.
The proposal to cap property-tax increases makes more sense than the Democratic alternative, which would limit annual increases to 2.9 percent but contains so many loopholes as to render it ineffective. Democrats would exempt key areas such as pensions and health care that tend to drive up costs.
Christie's plan suffers from a feature that allows voters to override the cap only if a supermajority of 60 percent approve. If a simple majority wants to exceed the cap in its town, the public will should carry the day.
Legislative committees would need to approve a cap by July 7 to get it on the November ballot.
Christie's first budget as governor is harsh medicine. But in a state where the average property-tax bill is nearly $7,300, he is on the right track.
#2
The more I see and hear about Christie, the more I like him. Hopefully he represents a new breed of politician that does what he says and says what he does.
In fact, I would love to see a straight-talking, take-no-BS, do-what's-right-no-matter-how-hard guy (or gal) like him to run for President. Now wouldn't that be refreshing!
#4
Christie is for illegal alien amnesty. Gov. Chris Christie calls for Republican Party rebranding On the hot-button topic of immigration reform, he said he has long declined to demagogue the issue as a former U.S. Attorney, because I come from law enforcement and its not an easy issue.
But he did intimate that he thinks stringent state-by-state laws such as in Arizona are the wrong approach, and added, I think President Obama doesnt do this at his own risk because its affecting the economy in the country to me, I think the presidents really gotta show the leadership on this.
This is a federal problem, its gotta have a federal fix, he said. Im not really comfortable with state law enforcement having a big role.
He said that without border security, enforcement of existing laws and a clear path to legalization for immigrants, there would never be a fix.
Not that 10 years later there will be 40 million more illegal aliens, all waiting for the next amnesty wave.
Posted by: ed ||
07/01/2010 19:13 Comments ||
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A few days ago, I mentioned this nugget from Byron Yorks piece on the Gore-masseuse business: Later, she talked to friends, liberals like herself, who advised against telling police. One asked her to just suck it up; otherwise, the worlds going to be destroyed from global warming.
And I said that that reminded me of a great hit from the Lewinsky era. Remember Nina Burleigh of Time magazine? I would be happy to give him [Bill Clinton] a [particular sexual favor] just to thank him for keeping abortion legal. I think American women should be lining up with their presidential kneepads on to show their gratitude for keeping the theocracy off our backs.
Then I recalled the old, rotten congressman Gus Savage, who went to Zaire and sicced himself on a Peace Corps volunteer. He appealed to a perverse racial solidarity: Oh, come on, baby, when you help the shepherd, you help the whole flock. He also said that, if she gave in to him, she would be helping the movement. Later, when the young woman reported the congressmans actions, he called her a traitor to the black movement. Of course.
Anyway: Just one more, which I thought of this morning. You remember what Melissa Lafsky wrote at the Huffington Post, talking about Ted Kennedys glorious career for the Left? Who knows maybe shed feel it was worth it. The she was Mary Jo Kopechne.
Sometimes, you take one for the team (as Mark Krikorian observed the other day). Sometimes you take a lot.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
