Life Update 083009

OK. So it's been a while since I've blogged. Aside from keeping people updated on Facebook about how good my morning Peet's tastes, there's been quite a bit going on.

Work is going well for me. I really enjoy my job and I work for an awesome company. And I'm not just saying that because I'm pretty sure my bosses will see this post. This is quite possibly the best company I've ever worked for. Reminds me a lot of the old Softbank before they got all big and became ClientLogic.

Amy is still recovering from thyroid cancer. She's pretty much recovered from the thyroid removal, but is still in the process of getting her thyroid levels evened out. Her work is pretty crazy. They are in their state survey window, so things are a little tense.

Due to Amy's surgery and subsequent follow-ups, she is pretty much out of vacation time until March, so we are going to have to cancel our Hawai'i trip this year. We'll probably do a Vegas Stay-cation, but that's about it. Hawai'i will have to wait until next year.

Many of you know that Amy's Dad has recently moved in with us. It's definitely been an adjustment. Hal is definitely appreciative, but getting used to a 68 year old living in our casita is an adjustment. Oh yeah - and he's allergic to cats. The good news is that the cats have never been in the casita, so it keeps his allergies to a minimum.

My political activities are getting pretty serious. I recent ran for 3rd Vice Chair of the Clark County Democratic Party. Unfortunately, it was the same weekend as Hal's move, and while I drew a respectable number of votes, I wasn't successful. Eh. Everything happens for good reason. I've signed up for a couple of committees, and am really focusing on growing my own North Valley Democratic Club. We had a great August meeting with Congresswoman Shelley Berkley, and have a great program planned for our September meeting. The topic is "Back to School" and we have confirmed our School District Trustee will be there to speak.

So, that's about it for right now. I'm trying to get both my diet and exercise plan under control so I can get back down under 190. It shouldn't be too rough, I just need to focus. Yeah...that's it.

State of the State

OK. First and foremost, I'll apologize on the front end for an number of things. First, I'll apologize for not posting as much as I used to. I am still trying to find a good balance between work, family and blogging. Second, I'm diving straight into a topic that no doubt will bore a number of you - our state budget and our Governor. Today's post was inspired by Jon Ralston's column in today's Las Vegas Sun. Instead of posting an anonymous comment, I figure that I would use my own corner of the blogosphere to discuss this topic.

As we get ready for the the biennial legislative session, Gov. Gibbons is getting ready for his "State of the State" address. It is true that the economy is the worst than most of us have seen in our lifetime and now isn't exactly the time to be raising taxes, however the situation before us has presented us with an usual opportunity to make the changes to our revenue structure and there are ways to reduce state spending without taking a machete to it. Instead, a careful, thoughtful examination of state spending is needed. Not all government spending is created equal. Where can we consolidate agencies? Where is there waste? Is our revenue structure setup so that it will provide the least amount of peaks and valleys?

I have no confidence in either of the two branches of government to come up with an actual long-term solution. Our elected officials are too caught up in looking ahead to the next election to actually do something proactive. Our Governor can't get past "No New Taxes." In addition, most Nevadans don't give a hoot about state government. In fact, I bet most people don't even know who their elected officials are in the legislature.

The answer to this lies with the people of the state of Nevada. Write and call your Assemblyperson and state Senator. If you don't know who they are, you can find out here. Write the Governor. Write the Speaker of the Assembly, the Assembly and Senate Majority and Minority Leaders. Write Letters to the Editor. Hold your elected officials accountable. I know many of the readers of this blog don't consider themselves "political," but we need our elected officials to know that we mean business, otherwise the political elite in this state will never learn. I know I am getting started on my letters, how about you?

Oh what a night...

I remember Election Night 1992 like it was yesterday. It was my first presidential election as a registered voter. I had seen then-Gov. Bill Clinton three times in person. Sitting in Scott's apartment watching the Election Night returns come in was nothing close to amazing. I was inspired and excited. Very little drama and I remember that feeling of elation when Clinton won. I was so happy.

Fast-forward to last night. Once again, there was a candidate who did more to inspire than candidates past. The night did not hang on a single, to-close-to-be called state. No talk about disenfranchisement, hanging chads or butterfly ballots. It all seemed too good to be true.

As it became clear that Obama was going to be elected President, the attention focused to local races, specifically the race in Assembly District 13. The early returns looked good, but not great. As expected, the Democratic edge in Early Voting was apparent, and we were ahead, but closer than most of us would have liked. It was a harbinger of things to come. As the returns trickled in, the lead narrowed, with the incumbent pulling a slight lead around 10:30 p.m. Then, around 11:30 it happened. The final results were in. Andrew lost. By a little more than 1,000 votes or a little more than 1 percent. He amassed more than 37K votes more than any other winner of an Assembly and even some state Senate races. But alas, the incumbent had just a few more.

Keds and I were devastated. I can't believe Andrew lost. He seems to be taking it in stride. He is obviously disappointed but I know that he'll be OK. He'll run again, and I'll be happy to work with him once again.

Last night was still amazing. Barack's acceptance speech was awe-inspiring and McCain's concession was classy. How many days until Inauguration Day?

An interesting theory

For the second time in a couple of weeks, I’ve seen stories that have linked the war in Georgia (the country, not the state) with attempts to influence the outcome of the Presidential Election.

Now normally, I would not buy into something that Vladimir Putin is pushing. Clearly, he wants to control the news cycle and spin within his sphere of influence. Second, I would like to believe that the US public is smarter than that, too. However, there was an article in The Nation that really started me thinking. While I’m not sure the US Government orchestrated the conflict in Georgia, I do think that members of a US Presidential campaign are involved.

I’ll just take a quick moment to recap events. On August 8^th, the Georgian government tries to re-establish authority over South Ossetia using its military. This provided Russia with the excuse it needed to go in and re-establish primacy in South Ossetia. The Georgian Army was simply overmatched.

Why would the President of Georgia do this? The conflict over South Ossetia was hardly new. South Ossetia was an autonomous region of Georgia prior to independence. He had to know that the Russian military would respond, given they had troops in the region as “peacekeepers.” My guess is that President Saakashvili assumed that “the West” would step in and help or it would help change world conditions in such as way to help his cause down the road.

Here are some interesting facts. President Saakashvili is good friends with a guy by the name of Randy Scheunemann, who, until March served as a lobbyist for the Georgian Government for four years. When Scheunemann left the service of the Georgian Government, he went to work as the Sr. Foreign Policy Adviser to the Sen. John McCain campaign. He also served in a similar capacity on John McCain’s 2000 campaign. In 2005, Scheunemann and McCain worked together on legislation pushing for Georgia’s entry into NATO and in 2006, accompanied McCain on a trip to Georgia where McCain re-iterated his support for Georgia’s policies.

It would make sense that by trying to re-establish control in South Ossetia, the Georgian government is doing what it can to act in their longer term interests. Influence the outcome of the US Presidential Election by changing the focus from problems at home to issues of foreign policy. And in making Vladimir Putin the second coming of Josef Stalin, they are creating a new bogeyman which Americans should be afraid.

Here's to hoping that Americans can see past the charade and focus on issues of real importance.

How to fix education

As we get closer and closer to the general election, one of the “hot button issues” is sure to be education. All of the conversation is going to be how will fix education. Most Democrats will tell you that it is all about money. There isn’t enough money. Most Republicans will tell you that while money is important, there is a lot of waste and we need to find a way to incent good teachers.

Unfortunately, they are both avoiding the single largest determining factor in whether or not a child succeeds has little to do with per-pupil funding or there are 50 administrative positions for every teacher. It is parental involvement. The beauty is that parental involvement costs the taxpayers nothing. Zilch. Nada. All it takes in the time of the child’s parent. This is readily apparent in the Clark County School System. A good friend of ours teaches in a school where the parents are very involved. So many parents volunteered to help out in the classroom last year that she had to make a schedule so there weren’t too many in the classroom at once. On the other end of the spectrum, one of my neighbors works in the library at middle school that has, let’s just say, less parental involvement. The students are struggling. They work the system so as to keep progressing, but aren’t getting a solid education. That’s not to say the whole school is failing, but it is difficult to work in that environment.

While additional parental involvement may be of great assistance and is, well, cheap, it’s also something you can’t legislate. As an example, in Roland Martin’s commentary on CNN.com today, he talks about this very topic. In Chicago, the superintendent of schools was on his radio show. Parent after parent called in, livid that they did not find out until right before graduation that their child was not going to graduate. Turns out, progress reports that highlight this fact were made available to parents. They were sent reminders during every marking period that their child was at risk of not graduating – they just had to come into school and pick up the cards and warnings.

Is it any wonder that with parents abdicating their responsibilities that we are seeing issues in education?

The Problem With Politics

With all due respect to my wife, the biggest problem with politics is not the amount of time I spend devoted to it. It is that when there are complex issues facing our great state and Republic, solutions cannot be reduced to a slogan. Unfortunately, slogans, gimmicks and sound bites are what sell well and can influence elections.

One example of this is the rising price of oil and the corresponding increase in gas prices. Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. In a truly free market economy, prices are set by the forces of supply and demand. However, even with rising demand from emerging economies like China, India and Brazil, there is enough oil being produced to satisfy worldwide demand. I’m too young to remember the last major supply shortage, but last time I checked, there are not long lines to get gas (unless you go to Costco on a Saturday.)

So if global supply and demand is generally in balance, why is the price of oil so high? It has to be speculators. That’s got to be it. There is a little bit of truth to this – speculators have artificially inflated the price of oil by reacting to global events and looking ahead to the prospects of a more limited supply. Yes, there is the Enron Loophole that has allowed the US Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) to go along, unregulated and unsupervised with no transparency since the early 1990s. While Congress is now closing the Enron Loophole, it will really only apply to domestic traders.

But what about all this talk about offshore drilling and using domestic reserves in Alaska and the Rockies? Wouldn’t this help reduce American demand while making us self-reliant on our own supply? There are a number of problems with this solution. First, what isn’t well known is that there are currently 90 million acres open to oil companies, of which only 20 is being actively drilled on. The oil companies do not want to invest the money to further drill and explore because they are hedging their bets. They don’t want to risk creating excess supply and setting their organizations to fail down the road. They are simply pursuing offshore leases and Alaska because it is popular, and cheaper. But again, who is to say they will actually invest in the necessary infrastructure. Also, you won’t see a drop of oil from any new exploration for seven to 10 years.

The national security piece (relying on our own reserves versus importing) is also problematic. Currently, the United States consumes 21 million barrels of oil PER DAY. Our current domestic production is about 5 million barrels per day. Even if Alaska and more coastal areas are opened up, it will only net an additional 8 million barrels per day. So, by my math, that leaves an additional 8 million barrels per day that we need to get from somewhere. Plus, why would an oil company take less money on domestic oil than what oil is trading for globally? OPEC and other oil-producing nations would most likely reduce production to account for the reduction in global demand.

The answer to rising gas prices is not a simple one. We need a multifaceted approach. How else are going to address this when you consumer 25% of the worlds oil, but can only possess 3% of the world’s oil reserves?

First, we need to kill all tax breaks for the integrated petroleum companies. Tax incentives should be reserved to help protect fledgling industries that are in our national interests. To this end, we need to provide additional tax incentives for renewal energy sources and engineering to reduce our need for fossil fuels. The oil companies can not be rewarded for not investing in their own businesses. Second, we need to encourage conservation and privately-driven alternative fuel development at home. See the example of T. Boone Pickens who announced today that he will build a wind farm in Texas. We need increased transparency and oversight at the CFTC. I mean really – why wasn’t the Enron loophole closed after the electricity crisis of the late 1990s?

Unfortunately, our country has developed based on the availability of cheap oil, and there is no easy solution in sight. Find me a politician that will come up with a sensible plan, and we can talk.

Life Updates

Whew. It was nice to take a little bit of a breather on Sunday. It’s been a crazy little stretch for the Kraft clan, but we seem to be weathering it nicely.

After a quick trip to LA the previous weekend for Elizabeth’s wedding reception, we managed to spend Father’s Day with both of our Dad’s which was nice. Keds had a random illness pop up on Monday – including a 103 degree fever. That curtailed our activities through Thursday. Unfortunately, it also meant we needed to cancel dinner plans with our friends Vegas Princess and her husband Charming, her folks and my parents. We tried to make it up, but more on that later.

Thursday was a really tough day. It appears that my new company likes to have “cutting the fat” exercise about once a quarter to twice a year. It started with the VP who hired me getting let go first thing in the morning. Having just started, and losing my last job in a “financial restructuring,” I did get a little nervous. OK, I was a lot nervous; especially when two people that I worked closely with were let go. But in the end, it looks like there was a strategy to cuts and there will be some good things that come out of this. We seem to be banding together as a division and are focused on service our customers.

Friday was highlighted both with a night out at the 51s game and getting out of work early. We were all ordered to leave at 3:30 as our office was being sprayed for bugs. From there, Keds and swung by and grabbed Dad then picked Mom up from work before heading to Cashman. Our plan was to try and watch the game with Princess, Charming and their families, but we weren’t able to get tickets close to them. Plus, it was like 100 degrees in the shade and the 51s got their butts kicked.

Saturday was a little crazy. First, I went canvassing for Dina Titus and Andrew Martin as part of the coordinated campaign. I was paired with a relatively pessimistic retiree, and knocking on doors in 100 degree heat was not all that fun. But we were able to leave some literature and spoke to some people who had never heard of Andrew, which was pretty cool. The lunch afterwards was pleasant, but it was reinforced that I need to keep my mouth shut when I start listening to idiot conspiracy theorists. After babysitting my favorite toddlers for 30 minutes (OK, they were both napping), Keds and I got ready for a dinner party at our favorite loan officer’s house.

Mind you, prior to last week we hadn’t received the invitation, and if I had checked our mail it may have been in there, but we were both a little miffed when we realized the point of the evening was not exactly as advertised. It was billed as a birthday party for our friend’s boyfriend to be catered by a professional chef. Turns out, it was actually a financial planner’s marketing event. At first, I was really annoyed and felt like we had been duped (I’m sure Princess knows how this feels J), but it ended up being a nice evening. The Financial Planner actually didn’t even try and push his services on us. We happened to have a couple of questions, and he answered them. We may end up using him for somethings in an effort to diversify. Also, our current guy, while good, is in LA so any deposits need to be mailed to him. Plus, since he was Leni’s guy, my concern is that he is almost like an uncle, and not in the good way – especially with money. Plus, we made friends with the field manager and his girlfriend, and the financial planner’s wife is actually a Registered Dietician. So, it ended up being a productive evening.

Sunday was much more laid back. The lesson learned, though, was to keep an eye on the pool temperature. No matter what the temperature, 96 degrees is not refreshing. Mom made stew meat and gravy for dinner which was uber-yummy. But it ended up being a much-needed relaxing day. Plus, the A’s won, which made it even better!

So what’s new with you?

Nevada’s Budgetary Issues

So it’s official. The nation’s least-effective governor has finally called for a special session of the legislature to deal with the state’s fiscal crisis. On the front-end, I really do believe that the reason the Governor finally called for a special session was due to the Textgate Scandal and the fact that the RJ published a poll showing the Governor’s approval ratings in the sewer. He wants to change the story. However, given that our Governor has not done anything substantive and has literally danced while Rome (or Reno, I get the two confused) burn, a special session is necessary to create sound fiscal policy for the next fiscal year so that things aren’t any worse by the time the budget is ratified.

The agenda, as I understand it, is specifically to talk about suspending Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA) for the upcoming year. Also on the list is how to stabilize the budget for the next fiscal year. This isn’t as easy as it sounds. There may be legal ramifications to this, as contracts with the various labor unions may guarantee that the raises go through, forcing the money to come from somewhere else.

While suspending raises is not popular, I’d rather see raises suspended than see layoffs in vital services. Having worked in the private sector my entire career, suspending pay increases is not uncommon. When I worked at ClientLogic, annual increases for salaried employees were suspended or deferred for three years during financially lean years. In addition, they suspended matching funds for our 401(k). Sure, it is a demotivator, but at least you still had a job.

What I would like to see is some sound fiscal policy come out of this special sesson. I’m not holding my breath that it will, but I can still hope. These are tough times for Nevada. Real leadership is needed. I don’t care that it’s happening in the middle of a campaign or if the Governor is calling the session just to change the subject. My call to Speaker Buckley and Sen. Majority Leader Raggio is to do what is difficult and do what you were hired to do – legislate in the best interest of the State of Nevada.

Sunday Musings

A few musings this afternoon as I watch the A's lose, which makes me sad, and the Penguins rout the Flyers, which makes me mildly happy.

My sister called this morning to tell me that one of our childhood neighbors passed away this morning. Ron Crowley in many ways was like an uncle to us. The last time I saw him was three years ago before my folks moved, and he was doing well. However, years of smoking finally caught up to him. He had a portion of his lungs removed not that long ago, and recently they discovered a brain tumor. After sending him home from the hospital on Friday and brining in hospice, he passed away this morning. Mr. Crowley, you will be in our thoughts and prayers as will your wife and children Kevin and Eileen.

This makes me even more nervous for my Dad. My Dad has had a disgustingly gross cough for the last few years. His skinny as a rail, is a closet smoker and drinks probably a six pack of beer a day (at least.) What scares me the most is that he refuses to go to the doctor. My Mom, my sister, my uncle (his brother) and I have tried to get him to go the doctor. I even took him out two weeks ago to urge him to go to the doctor. My sister is pregnant with twins and Keds and I are getting ready to adopt. I used the "Beth and I want our kids to know their grandfather" line. I'm 98% certain it went in one ear and out the other. At this point, short of telling him we are going to Disneyland and taking him there under false pretenses, I don't think anything will get him there.

This was a nice, lazy weekend. We spent almost all day Saturday in the pool. Today, between the gym, church and another afternoon in the pool I think I'll be well-rested heading into the work week.

I opened up a new single-origin coffee this morning - Ethiopia Fancy. I blended it with my remaining New Guinea Highlands. It was an, um, interesting blend to say the least. I'll be interested to try it on its own tomorrow. Ethiopia is the birthplace of coffee, so that adds a historic element to it as well. Another shipment is on it's way. In trying to find the perfect pound that Ked and I will both enjoy, I'm trying at least one new coffee everyone shipement in addition to the New Guinea and Major D that we already like. One thing I did learn is that Keds does not like the French Press (yes Matt, I wussed out and bought one). It does make a STRONG pot of coffee, but it was different and I enjoyed it.

This week is shaping up to be busy, with a lot of after-work activities. A meeting with Jewish Family Services on Monday, the Andrew Martin for Assembly Kickoff event on Thursday and Andrew on Tuesday will make for a busy week heading into Memorial Day weekend.

Anyway, I hope y'all had great weekends as well. I've got a couple of good posts planned for the week, so let's see how that shapes up.

Friday Filibuster

Yes, please note the irony in the title. This post is going to be both politcal and more than just a quick read.

A small item made news here yesterday about a bill proposed by Congressman Dean Heller from Nevada’s First Congressional district. Don’t get me wrong, it will play well in his district that covers Reno, rural Nevada and a very small piece of Clark County. The bill is an amendment to the Voting Rights Act to remove the requirement that bilingual ballots be provided if 5 percent of the voting-age citizens are deemed limited in their English-speaking skills, as determined by the US Census.

I will admit that I have mixed feelings on this bill. To be able to vote, you need to be a US citizen. To be a US citizen, you need to pass a basic English proficiency exam. So why do we go through the taxpayer expense of printing dual-language ballots? How much English do you have to understand to read what office the candidate is running for and the candidates’ names? The complexity comes in when reading and understanding ballot initiatives. This are often very wordy and tough to follow, even for those with a firm grasp on English. It makes sense that they may need to be translated to be adequately understood.

The immigration debate in this country hasn’t changed in 200 years. It started with the first waves of non-WASP immigrants. First, it was the massive amounts of Irish immigration. The next waves were from Italy and other, poorer and mostly Roman Catholic areas of Southern Europe. Many people today don’t realize there was a serious effort to bar Catholics from both citizenship and the right to vote in the 19th century. During the California Gold Rush and construction of the transcontinental railroad, there were massive amounts of Chinese immigration. If you were to walk through the ethnic neighborhoods of any major city (New York, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco) during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the languages of the “old country” would have dominated. Children learned to speak English, and served as translators for their parents who had a limited grasp of the language.

The general debate hasn’t changed. The only wrinkle is that there are a substantial number of people entering the country outside of the established processes. We need to protect our borders. We need to maintain our national security.

However, the bill as proposed by Rep. Heller does nothing to secure our borders. It just makes it harder for those citizens that are still gaining confidence in English to understand ballot questions and fully participate in every voting-age citizen's civic duty – take an active interest in public affairs and vote.

We need to call this bill what it really is - an election year stunt to rekindle debate on a “wedge” issue without actually solving things. Chances are Rep. Heller was only asked to propose this bill because it will play well in Reno, Pahrump, Ely and the rest of rural Nevada.

This country has real problems that need to be solved. People are losing their homes. Our military is under-funded and stretched thin in two theaters, compromising their effectiveness. Our infrastructure is old and at greater risk of failing.

Introducing this bill is a bigger waste of taxpayer money than printing bilingual ballots. I only hope that Jill Derby can use this argument against Congressman Heller. It's obvious to me that he is not independent and simply a tool for Republican leadership.

City Council Meeting 4/2/2008

While I don't mean to scoop ScandalMonger, I am going to report a little on tonight's City Council meeting. We knew it was going to be a hot one, that's for sure. On the Agenda were two hot items, both relating to apartments. I specifically went to speak against Agenda #32, a zoning change for property at the northwest corner of Centennial and Valley from a Planned-Use Development to R3, or apartments. When I handed in my card, it was mentioned that the requestor was asking the item be removed from the agenda. Basically, they had at least three of the five votes against and with all three running for Mayor next year passage wasn't likely, so they are most likely going to the original zoning, which is for condos, or waiting until a later time.

However, the real hot issue was agenda item #2 - the Site Plan Review for the parcel at Centennial and Revere. The land was already hard-zoned R3 and to not pass it would violate the Open-Land Development Agreement. Basically, the city would be sued by Pardee Homes. The City Attorney basically said she couldn't find any justification to disregard the OL-DA other than the citizens were mad.

About 50 people stood up to speak against it. The Mayor and Council both said they had never seen so many people turnout. Some were a little crazy, some were very methodical and presented logical arguments. In the end, the citizens of El Dorado's gripe is with Pardee Homes and they need to file a class action lawsuit against Pardee. The City Council's hands were tied. If they voted against it, the city would be sued and Pardee would have come after the city for legal fees. We already pay they highest tax rate per assessed value of any municipality in the Valley. It was much less raucous than I thought it would.

The vote went exactly as I thought - 3 -2. Mayor Pro-Tem Robinson and Councilwoman Buck voted against. Councilwoman Buck's vote was purely a self-preservation move. She lives in El Dorado and is running for Mayor. Prior to this, she didn't find an apartment project she didn't like. Poor Councilwoman Smith. She basically sealed her political fate tonight, but did the right thing. People won't understand it, though, which is sad.

What I did notice, though is that our mayor is a jerk. He was rude to people and talked down to them. Now don't get me wrong - people were sometimes out of line, but you let them make fools of themselves and don't look like the bad guy. I can't believe he's been in office nearly 12 years. What a schmuck.

That one agenda item took nearly 2.5 hours to listen to all the public comments. The rest of the meeting went pretty fast. The next showdown is next Wednesday at the Planning Commission. Basically, Pardee wants to add two more parcels totalling nearly 1,100 MORE apartments for the adjoining parcels. Should be quite the showdown because the troops are now mobilized.

What kind of city do you want?

As many of you know, I am getting more and more involved in the issues that effect our community to compliment my involvement in politics. There is a saying that all politics is local - that being that issues that effect us closest to home are the issues that shape our general political views.

In an effort to be more informed, I attended the NLV Planning Commission meeting on Wednesday night. Without boring you all with details, what struck me most was the Commissioner's lack of ability to see the forest for the trees. From what I've seen of zoning changes passed by City Council, I would have to guess the same since only now that there is some organized opposition to some zoning changes to build apartments that they are taking a serious look at certain issues.

What happens is that first the Planning Commission, then the City Council review and vote on proposed zoning variances or changes. Both meetings are open to the public, but are usually sparsely attended. As the Commissioners, Councilpeople and the Mayor vote on issues, you would think that they would have some sort of master plan that they use as a guide. Well, they do. However, they are constantly ignoring or changing it. In fact the latest Master Plan is only a few weeks old and has already been either ignored or modified slightly.

Here is a perfect example. When the El Dorado tracts were purchased by Pardee in 1988, they agreed to specific zoning, including 15 foot minimums for backyards in residential neighborhoods. Well, the first item on the agenda was a request by Pardee for a zoning variance to allow for smaller backyards. Planning and Zoning Staff recommending denying the request, given the 'hardship' was self imposed. The variance will allow them to introduce a low-cost housing (sub-$200K) product in this parcel. Pardee positioned themselves very well - since the land is zoned for as many as 25 units per acre and they are proposing less than 9 units per acre, they should be given the zoning variance. To introduce the same product given the zoning restriction that have been in place for 20 years would have reduce the subdivision by about 9 lots. So that left the Planning Commission in what I like to call God's Little Acre - either approve low-cost housing or let Pardee build apartments. What disturbs me the most is that Planning Commission members were helping Pardee's attorney make her own arguments!

When Keds and I bought in Aliante, it was under the assumption that this was the "new" North Las Vegas. However, if this keeps happening, it will be the same old North Las Vegas. If the Planning Commission, City Council and Mayor's office are fine with North Las Vegas remaining the blue-collar suburb, that's fine. Just say it and move on. However, don't be surprised when the City doesn't hit their new Vision 2025...

Devastated

OK. So maybe I'm being a little melodramatic, but I am seriously bummed bordering on upset that John Edwards suspended his presidential campaign today. It caught me totally off-guard. I didn't expect him to win the nomination, but was expecting him to be in it at least through Super Tuesday and honor his pledge to stay in it through the convention. I believed it especially after Noah left to head up a signature-gathering campaign in Indiana. Just yesterday I received an e-mail asking for money so they could hit a specific dollar amount by the end of the month (thankfully, I held off on that donation).

Of the top three Democrats, he was the one with the vision and the policy knowledge to work through the details and put thoughtful answers to many of the key issues facing our nation out there. Unfortunately, he was completely overshadowed by Sens. Clinton and Obama. I think when Obama threw his hat in the ring, he was to this election what John Edwards was four years ago - the fresh face touting change. As an African-American, he also brought a "rock-star" quality that frankly John didn't have.

The article I read on CNN.com indicated that he wasn't getting enough media exposure to be competitive on Super Tuesday. That was definitely the case - all the major news outlets were essentially ignoring him and focusing on Sens. Clinton and Obama. They tried to downplay the money issue, but lets face it - he didn't have the money to spend on TV advertising so average Americans really weren't exposed to him. By ignoring him, the mainstream media made it a two-person race because a race between a woman and an African-American garners more ratings, sells more papers and drives more Internet hits than a three person race between a woman, an African-American and a white Southern man.

Isn't it ironic that John got more media coverage today than in the last two months?

I know I'll end up voting for a Democrat in November. I know that because John was able to set the debate, Sens. Clinton and Obama plans on a lot of issues are essentially the same. There are some minor differences in there.

On a different note, Ralph Nader is considering another White House bid. I hope he gets a visit from Gov. Howard Dean, MD and gets a good beating. It's because of Ralph Nader in the first place that we've had to endure the last seven years.

PS - On our way to LA this past weekend, when we stopped at a Starbucks in Baker, someone with Nevada plates had a vanity plate "4 Bush 2" I am all for supporting your candidate, but limit it to some bumper stickers and yard signs. Don't pay the money for a vanity plate - that'll be with you for years unless you pay to switch it.

Step away from the blog...

Hi. My name is Ken and I have a problem. I have recently been told that I am a political snob, and have agreed that this, indeed, the case. I have little to no tolerance when people do not have the same level of knowledge that I do and do not do the same amount of research that I take the time to do.


At the same time, I also have no tolerance for people that want no part of the process. These are the people that we elect to make decisions on how to spend our tax dollars. That people aren't interested in that drives me absolutely nuts.


I also need to stop reading JohnEdwards.com's blog and the comments on the Las Vegas Sun's website. I get all fired up. I just need to step away from the blogs, that's all.


Oh, and here's a picture of John Edwards and I from an appearance last week in Las Vegas.


I wonder if they have a 12 step program for people like me.

Caucus!

Keds and I went to our Temporary Chair Caucus training on Saturday. At first, we were a little apprehensive - not because we don't want to volunteer, but because we weren't sure what to expect.

We showed up at Cashman Center a few minutes before 10 a.m. (which was amazing for us - we usually run late), and are told to park on top of the hill, but we had plenty of time to walk all the way down the hill nearly back out to Washington Ave. where the entrance to the meeting rooms are. We registered, got our name tags and headed into the main meeting room for the introduction.

After starting about 30 minutes late, we got into the meat of the training. The cool thing about the caucus process is that you have the opportunity to support your own candidate, and the fact that delegates are apportioned according to what percent of folks in that precinct support that candidate. The other really cool thing about this, is that it is entirely local. The people in the caucus are those people that live in your election precinct - your neighbors.

My biggest concern though, in this notoriously apathetic state, is that turnout will be poor. The Republicans are having their caucus the same day, so my recommendation is that everyone who is registered with either one of the two main political parties block out January 19th. The total amount of time is less than two hours of your Saturday, and it will keep your home state from being a national political laughing stock. Plus, given the closeness of races in Iowa and New Hampshire, we have a unique opportunity to help shape the presidential race!