Joseph Dupont letter
I can't agree more with the recent letter from Joseph DuPont. He rightly knows that in order to compete with the Chinese, we need to get rid of all those pesky regulations concerning the environment and work safety standards. We are all certainly aware of the beautiful, clean cities of China, and of their happy and fulfilled workforce.
He neglected one important point, though. We need a work force that will work for $1 a week or so. That way we can not only compete with anyone in the world, we can also achieve full employment almost overnight. I myself would be willing to hire a dozen people just to have them around to light the occasional cigar, or perhaps add the extra olive to my evening martini.
Imagine a country in which our corporations are unburdened by the need to protect employees and the environment from exploitation and unnecessary risk.
We need to get out of the way so our corporations can do what they do best, make money and create jobs. More men with the foresight of Joseph DuPont are exactly what America needs to be great again.
Conrad Hudgens
Carefree
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This week’s most popular e-mail
Warren Buffet's quote about deficit
Submitted by Michael Selzer, Ph.D., Carefree
Warren Buffett, in a recent interview with CNBC, offers one of the best quotes about the debt ceiling:
"I could end the deficit in 5 minutes," he told CNBC. "You just pass a law that says that anytime there is a deficit of more than 3% of GDP, all sitting members of Congress are ineligible for re-election.”
View video
(Warren Buffett's ingenious deficit idea –
The head of Berkshire Hathaway says he has a great plan:
Tie lawmakers' political futures to the deficit.
By Kim Peterson on Fri., Jul. 8, 2011)
Copyright 2011 MSN.com
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Which Way, New York?
Will Feds Tolerate Local Obstruction of Immigration Enforcement?
WASHINGTON – The New York City Council is poised to adopt an ordinance that is designed to severely limit the ability of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the federal immigration enforcement agency, to identify and remove illegal aliens from the city correctional system. If adopted, the city will join a small list of large cities, including San Francisco, Washington, Chicago, and San Jose, that deliberately obstruct ICE’s operations.
A new Center for Immigration Studies report, “Which Way, New York? Will Feds Tolerate Local Interference or Assert Their Authority?” examines New York City’s policies and practices and the effect they have on public safety and federal enforcement efforts. It questions the federal government’s passive acceptance of these sanctuary policies and recommends actions that can be taken to discourage such developments.
Key findings:
Three-quarters of all foreign-born arrests in the entire state of New York occur in New York City (NYC). In 2008, the latest year for which data are available, local officers arrested 52,827 immigrants in NYC.
For at least 20 years, NYC has had official policies impeding the enforcement of federal immigration laws. City policies prevent ICE agents from receiving notification of arrested aliens before their release from police custody.
In September 2009, NYC’s Department of Correction adopted, and has since maintained, particularly obstructive policies and procedures for immigration officers and agents attempting to access criminal alien inmates housed in its detention facilities. Jail staff are required to follow procedures that actively encourage aliens to refuse to speak with ICE agents.
Since the implementation of these procedures, the number of aliens charged with immigration violations at the city’s main detention facility has been cut nearly in half.
Not withstanding its lack of cooperation, NYC has garnered millions of dollars each year in federal SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) funds since the inception of this program to reimburse jurisdictions for the costs of incarcerating illegal aliens criminals.
Despite all of the above facts, the federal government has never taken action to overcome the obstacles placed in its way by NYC – either through lawsuits, withholding of funding, or executive action – so that it can perform its job of immigration law enforcement in the most effective and efficient way possible.
The Center for Immigration Studies is an independent non-partisan research institution that examines the impact of immigration on the United States.
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Vote NO on CCUSD’s 15 percent M&O override!
According to the state Auditor General, the total CCUSD spending per student rose from $6,552 in the 2005-6 school year to $7,210 in the 2009-10 school year (a 10 percent increase). However, despite an M&O override, district classroom spending remained flat, with $3,902 spent per pupil in 2005-6 to $3,921 spent per pupil in 2009-10. However, during this period, CCUSD non-classroom spending rose about 24 percent from $2,650 per student in 2005-6 to $3,289 in 2009-10. This increase occurred despite a 2 percent decline in district student enrollment (5,732 students in 2005-6 to 5,608 in 2009-10)
This spending increase is reflected by CCUSD’S staffing imbalance: 328 non-teaching staff compared to 285 teachers in 2009-10, despite M&O overrides. This 43 non-teaching staff imbalance has not changed since the 2005-6 school year.
With this significant non-teaching staff surplus, why are only district teachers confronted with reductions in force? Could it be that they are considered to be more visible to the voter than district administrators? The Auditor General has reported there is little difference in the classroom/non-classroom spending levels in Arizona, whether or not a school district has budget overrides.
An anonymous letter sent, but not received for publication in the Voter Information Pamphlet
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Carefree’s coming volcano
Those driving along Carefree Drive in Carefree over the past two weeks have encountered a bump strip, meaning, you’d better slow down. The strip covers two heavily-insulated electrical cables carrying 220 volts. The cables are as big as fire hoses. They were needed because an underground cable had broken.
Now, why would a cable, buried in Arizona earth, stable as Gibraltar, fail? As a longtime investigative journalist, I set to find out.
First, I put together an independent panel of three geologists. They are independent because they don’t know each other, nor do they have relatives working in Carefree real estate or on the town’s council. There is no way they might conspire to falsify the truth.
I’ll name them Aly, Branco, and Carmen, just to keep them separate, although those are not their real names.
Branco, his PhD earned at Colorado State University, brought a toolkit that included gas analysis tubes. His was the first report in. It said, no doubt about it, the ground under Black Mountain was moving whole centimeters a year, releasing gases from deep under the earth, not from some broken sewer or water line. (Branco is famous for his PhD thesis, in which he posited a way of earthquake prediction by asking newlywed women if the earth moved for them.)
Aly, next in, said the delay in fixing the power cables was because Arizona Public Service (APS) could not find a contractor willing to put the mountain back together, to keep the cables from breaking again. Nice, but what had been the cause of the rupture? Aly didn’t say.
Carmen, last of the investigators, put the entire problem in perspective with a two-page paper detailing causes. His instruments detected a rift deep in the earth under Black Mountain. He predicted an earthquake, perhaps with volcanic action, within the next month. Shocking, because Arizona’s last volcano, Sunset Crater northeast of Flagstaff, erupted back in 1066.
Meantime, APS officials are reconsidering their company’s policy of laying cables under ground, no matter the visual pollution.
Jack Grenard
Carefree
Editor note: Was Jack’s tongue firmly implanted in his cheek?
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COINS 2nd Survey Closing
Be advised that the nature of this survey is totally inappropriate. Soliciting (requiring) answers to personal/confidential information is a shameful, unconscionable act, especially when conducted by a local municipality. You have neither the right, nor legal authority, to gather such information. The individual(s) responsible should be reprimanded.
John Traynor
Carefree
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]]
Sent: Tuesday, October 18, 2011 10:24 AM
To: John.Traynor@redacted
Subject: COINS - 2nd Survey Closing
2nd CITIZEN SURVEY -- CLOSES FRIDAY, OCTOBER 21ST
If you have not participated in the 2nd Citizen Survey you still have time! The survey will close this Friday, October 21st. Please take some time and participate. Your opinion is important to the Town Council.
Survey Topic
As referenced in the initial Citizen Survey, the Town does NOT assess a property tax. Therefore, public services and infrastructure improvements are funded in part through sales tax generated within the Town. Within the initial survey, 71 percent of the respondents favored a broader assortment of businesses to enhance the Town revenues. In order to provide more clarity and direction, the second survey will specifically focus on further defining the supporting demographics in the local market area, further determine what you the consumer will support, develop an understanding of your shopping preferences, and further ensure the prudent use of public resources.
We look forward to your participation in this survey and appreciate your time and effort!
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Retirement age
Consider the fact that your “committee” can raise the retirement age, to 70 for example, to reduce the deficit. However if people in their 70s cannot find work you subject them to poverty or worse.
In my late 40s, while the economy was booming, I found it difficult to find employment in my profession at a comparable salary. As anyone with any intelligence knows, employers can fabricate various legal reasons for not hiring an older worker.
Fortunately I found employment in retail that was related to my degree and experience; after nine years my salary was the same as before. And then the recession hit – designing and selling a product that is typically a not necessity became more and more difficult. Due to family obligations, I relocated and could not find a comparable position. Fortunately, I was of retirement age.
And now your super committee is planning on cutting Social Security and Medicare benefits, benefits for which I worked for over forty years, that I was counting on for my Golden Years. Or will your super committee make them my Destitute, Black Years?
These benefits did not cause the deficit and should not be used to fix it!
Sincerely,
Heidy Schmidt
Scottsdale
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Page Nine No. 104
Have you noticed that the "news" media capitalizes the phrase "Occupy Wall Street" is every use, but places the "tea party" in lower case and quote marks all the time? Does this mean the "occupy" people are real and the "tea party" people are just a temporary distraction? Or is it a subtle and effective way to marginalize The Tea Party, and promote the "occupy" people as hard as possible? The entire media could not be reached for a response.
Old news: For at least a decade, the five largest mainstream newspapers have run series after series of exposes on welfare cheats, welfare fraud, and the damaging effects of welfare on morals, industriousness and the very fabric of America. Hahahah! Just a little joke. Thanks, Craig C., and it's worse than you can imagine pal (welfare fraud neatly explained by a fraud, for would-be frauds).
There is a small contingent of people who recognize that the waiting rooms in airports have become virtual torture-chamber propaganda camps, with CNN blaring incessantly throughout, and none of the victims responding or reacting, as if they were hypnotized by the broadcasts. It's not even real CNN, it's a doctored version just for airports, on a short loop, with unsettling and controversial programming omitted. That's why it's called programming. Can you say Fahrenheit 451? Brave New World? 1984? V is for Vendetta? The Matrix? It's gotten so bad I was in a bar recently, and everyone was glued to the TV, watching... wait for it... "Friends" – a TV show about being in a bar. Oh, the irony. This is not a joke.
Have you ever thought about what POWER is, in its most unembellished terms?
"Power is the ability make air vibrate and have people respond to the vibrations."
In other words, it is the ability to speak words and have other people act. That's basically all there is to it. It can be done in writing as well.
Stripped of its trappings, power comes from the people who are subject to the power, not from the people who have been placed in a position of power.
We all agree, under some invisible social contract, to cooperate with the one who holds the power. We elect or defer or acquiesce to someone, and they hold power.
They speak, we act. Stand up. Leave. Pay. Please wait to be seated.
Some speech holds so much of this invisible quality it can have us put to death.
Take our possessions. Abuse us in any way imaginable. All a function of vibrated air.
Do not confuse power with use of force, another subject I'll get to on another day.
Alan Korwin
Bloomfield Press
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Biker’s Review of the "Occupy Phoenix" Rally Oct. 15
If you have ever seen the cult classic, "One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest," starring Jack Nicholson, you then have a fairly descriptive picture of what this "Occupy Phoenix" rally is all about. If not, let me give it to you in a "nutshell" (no pun intended): "Upon arrival at a mental institution, a brash rebel (Nicholson) rallies the patients (the Occupy Phoenix protesters) together to take on the oppressive Nurse Ratched (the evil Wall Street Bankers), a woman more a dictator than a nurse."
This is the impression we had as three of my Motorcycle Enthusiast friends and I (www.RidersUSA.net) went wading into the mass of protesters at Caesar Chavez Plaza in downtown Phoenix on Saturday afternoon, October 15. As we wanted to get a feel of what this "movement" was all about and didn't wish to draw any attention to ourselves, we shed our Biker vests and went "incognito" as mere observers. What we saw left us scratching our heads, and the predominant thought running through our minds was ... WTF?!!
I hadn't seen anything like this since the Vietnam anti-war protests of the 60s and 70s.
As we approached a small stage set up to accommodate those wishing to speak or entertain, we heard a rapper using four letter expletives in describing motherhood, women genitalia, the police, the military, religion, the Pope and whomever else displeased this angry lunatic! Young, unkempt people were moving in cadence to the rapper's "message."
As we moved along people dressed up in home-crafted cattle costumes held up signs proclaiming that "eating meat was tantamount to murder." Others were ranting about the evils of Capitalism and the virtues of Socialism. We noted people walking around in Che Guevara shirts (wanna be revolutionaries), Hammer and Sickle shirts (Communist logo) chanting that Revolution is the only antidote to Capitalism … Various Union representatives were passing out literature promoting the virtues of joining Unions in order to keep the big bad corporations in check and to properly "represent the workers of America."
When a small contingent of Phoenix Police moved through the crowd, a menacing mob followed closely behind. Their message apparently was that if the police dared to harass or even think about arresting anyone, this mob was "ready for them." The police though alert, did not look very comfortable.
Admittedly, the only thing we did not witness was people defecating and fornicating in the streets, as has been reported in other cities! I would suspect those occurrences would have materialized in due time given the mentality of this bunch! After spending about an hour wandering about this outdoor asylum, we figured we had seen enough to formulate our opinions about this "phenomenon that is sweeping the world."
Conclusion: If Obama and Pelosi are really serious about their encouragement and support for these people and their movement ... we are in deeper trouble than what we realize!!
Vince Ansel
Scottsdale
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Running of the Bulls
We live in North Scottsdale and were going to attend the event with several friends from Gilbert and Scottsdale Ranch. As the event neared the idea not to advertise in Sonoran News got us to wondering? Is this event really special and worth our time to go out there or is it kind of like a local only event? We kept checking several weeks prior and in the online Sonoran News but nothing ever appeared other than permit questions.
Anonymous
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