Red Means Stop
This was so predictable. Cities wanted to stop red light runners. They installed automatic cameras at problem intersections. The state said the cities were greedy, they were just after the money. The state's response? Take the money for itself. The state promised to fund emergency rooms and trauma centers. Now, as it turns out, the state never followed through. The Dallas Morning News is right to complain. The greed in this story is in Austin, far away from the accidents, injuries and deaths caused by red light runners on our city streets.
Disk Space is Free
It seems that state agencies in Austin have been automatically deleting emails from their systems in as little as seven days. The Dallas Morning News thinks that might be just a little too quick, but otherwise supports the practice, saying "Public officials can't be expected to save every digitized sentence ('Honey, Quizno's at 6?') lest they overstuff the people's servers."
Earth to The Dallas Morning News. That Quizno's message is not going to overstuff the people's servers. Saving email is not going to break the treasury. Disk space is cheap and getting cheaper all the time. Google is getting rich because they understand the economics of technology. Maybe the state of Texas should check out Google's free email service:
Gmail: A Google approach to email.The Dallas Morning News says "The public deserves reassurance that state regulations are keeping up with technology where the people's business is concerned." The News itself is behind the times if it thinks cost is the reason why emails are being deleted after 7, 14, or even 30 days. Today, there's only one reason to delete emails, and that's to cover up embarrassment, malfeasance, corruption, or just plain incompetence.
Lots of space: Over 4975.492087 megabytes (and counting) of free storage so you'll never need to delete another message.
Mistakes Happen
The Dallas Blog's Tom Pauken has spotted former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales back in Texas. Gonzales gave a speech to the Corpus Christi Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. Could you invent a friendlier-sounding group to welcome Gonzales?
In the speech, Gonzales still fails to find anything specific anyone specific in the Bush administration did wrong. "Mistakes are going to happen, but the American people don't expect perfection," he said, passively. What they expect, according to Gonzales, is good faith. Apparently, he wants history to judge him, not as evil, only as incompetent.
In Tom Pauken's revision of history, Gonzales was not as much evil or incompetent as he was the fall guy. Pauken excuses Gonzales by taking a swing at Dick Cheney and David Addington and Karl Rove, crediting unnamed Washington insiders as saying Gonzales was only carrying out policies designed by others. Watching Tom Pauken get his revenge on his fellow conservatives is a guilty pleasure. Pop some corn.
By the way, Pauken's man in the 2008 Republican race looks more and more to be Mike Huckabee. Pauken praises Huckabee's anti-abortion and anti-gay rights social positions and sees a little daylight between Huckabee and the Bush administration's rush to war in Iran.
Just the Facts
Are you tired of how the mainstream media lets its liberal bias color its news stories and slants the news to the left? Are you happy that Dallas now has a news source like Dallas Blog to give us the straight news? Are you happy with today's report in Dallas Blog about Illinois' recently passed law mandating a moment of silence in public schools? Here's how Tom Pauken reports that news:
"Federal Judge Robert Getterman declared unconstitutional Thursday an Illinois state law which provided for a moment of silence in the public schools of that state."The first reader comment on Dallas Blog amplified the outrage. "That's a bunch of Bull ____.!" writes john k, lending more evidence to the truth of Winston Churchill's truism that "a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on."
What is the truth? First, the judge's name is Gettleman, not Getterman. No big deal, but if Pauken can't get even something as simple as the judge's name right, how much of the rest of the story should we trust?
Next, the law did not "provide" for a moment of silence. That's what the old law did. The new law mandates it.
Finally, the judge did not declare the law unconstitutional. He issued an injunction forbidding the state from enforcing the new law until a court case filed by a parent can be heard. In other words, teachers are still allowed to have a moment of silence. But, for now, the state can't lock them up if they choose not to.
Listen, Tom, if you ever want Dallas Blog to be taken seriously as a news source, you have to get the facts straight. Even if you only care about promoting right-wing propaganda, if you want a hope of persuading anyone with half a brain, get the facts straight.
No comments:
Post a Comment