EspressoPundit

     Ruminations of an over-caffeinated political junkie

Archive second quarter 2005

Thursday June 30

Here's a letter about the Gulag Diet. 

Wednesday June 29

The Gulag Diet

OK, my kids have been out of school for three weeks and it's driving me crazy. What can I feed them that's healthy? If only I could find a menu that would provide two weeks of healthy food choices, broken down into individual meals. Hey, how about the Gulag diet? No, not the REAL Gulag like the one profiled in "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich." Here's a sample of that menu:

The little fish were more bone than flesh; the flesh had been boiled off the bone and had disintegrated leaving a few remnants on head and tail. Without neglecting a single fish scale or particle of flesh on the brittle skeleton, Shukhov went on chomping his teeth and sucking the bones, he ate everything - the gills, the tail, the eyes, when they were still in their sockets, but not when they'd been boiled out.

Yuk, I don't want to feed fish eyes to my kids.  No, I mean the Amnesty International version of the Gulag diet.  It seems that some of the folks in charge of Gitmo got a little ticked off at all the Gulag talk and leaked the two week menu rotation.

Here's a nice sample:

Tuesday Dinner: Whole Wheat Bread, Margarine, Brown Long Grain Rice, Fresh Fruit, Steamed Carrots, Broccoli or Celery, Lemon Baked Fish. Tea or Drink Aide.

Gulag? That sounds more like a cruise ship.  Maybe if my kids eat a second helping of lemon-baked fish, I'll let them watch Arthur. That way, I'll have time to go to the store and buy the rice pilaf and grilled chicken that we will be having on Wednesday.
 

We already have a letter about the Gulag Diet...

Greg

That was very interesting.  After looking it over w/ a professional dietician friend, I may use it along w/ exercise to lose weight.  Seriously, she said it was a very balanced diet that would help me slim down & maintain a slimmer tone.  I can tell you from experience that it’s WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYY better than the Tent City diet being fed to non-murdering AZ citizens with a single DUI conviction.  If given the option I think I would have gone to Gitmo for my DUI sentence.  Maybe we should close Gitmo & bring them all here so Uncle Joe can be in charge of them.  Then Amnesty International just might have a reason to gripe about prisoner treatment. 

PS.  I’ll let you know how the Gulag diet works for healthy weight loss.

name withheld

(And if you email your Tent City stories to me, I'll withhold your name as well.)

Tuesday June 28 Wednesday

More Durbin Fallout...

On June 23, I wrote:

Tom Liddy took Senator Dick Durbin to task for outrageously equating the guards at Guantanamo Bay to those who ran the Soviet gulags, Nazi camps and Cambodian killing fields. Then fellow blogger Chris Thomas actually comes to Durbin's defense:

Did Durbin's analogy go too far? Perhaps.

Jana Bommersbach and Chris Thomas took me to task for focusing on Durbin's comments and ignoring the substance of his charges.

Here's Jana's comment

Chris Thomas asks a most pertinent and valid question: Does the treatment and lack of charges of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay sound like America to you?

No it doesn't Chris. At least, not MY America. Not the America of the U.S. Constitution and its Bill of Rights. Not the America that has always seen itself - sometimes deservedly - as a moral compass for the world. Not the America of decent and fair people.

It might well be the America of Greg Patterson and Mark Genrich, who would rather scream at the critics than answer the criticism. But then, what else is new?
 

Here's my response to Jana and Chris...

It was Dostoevsky who said that "A society should be judged not by how it treats its outstanding citizens but by how it treats its criminals." Despite the outrageous references to Nazis and comparisons of Christian politicians to the Taliban, Jana and Chris have asked an important question: Does the treatment and lack of charges of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay sound like America to you?

Indeed, good men like Chuck Colson have dedicated their lives to ensuring that prisoners are treated with the human dignity, compassion and restraint they deserve. And we as a society should ask ourselves Chris and Jana's question.

Jana refers to the lack of charges and makes reference to the Bill of Rights. Yet these are fundamental rights that our country has granted those who are accused of crimes. The men who hid in the caves of Afghanistan are not criminals, entitled to Miranda and Habeas Corpus rights. They are not soldiers or POWs entitled to the rights of the Geneva Conventions. These troglodytes are unlawful combatants being trained to infiltrate civilian populations and blow up restaurants full of children and busses full of tourists. They are men who targeted our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing hundreds and maiming thousands of innocent people. They are hostage takers who sawed off the heads of helpless men like Nick Berg and Daniel Pearl. They film these horrific acts of violence and broadcast them on Aljazeera and the Internet. They bombed the U.S.S. Cole. They attacked our country. Killed our people on our soil. They tried to kill our president and our Congressmen.

And we have treated them with restraint. They are well fed; they have access to their prayer rugs and Korans; they have air conditioning and eat chicken three times a week. Have there been abuses? Yes. Where do the men and women who have abused prisoners now reside? Prison. Would I want to be at Gitmo? No. Do they deserve harsher treatment than lawful combatants. Yes. If I were a terrorist and I could choose any country in the world in which to be incarcerated, which country would that be? America.

Much has been made of the treatment of prisoners in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, but what of the horrific treatment of prisoners of the Taliban and Saddam Hussein? Who was going to rescue those prisoners - the French? John Kerry? The United Nations? Where were Bill Clinton and Richard Clark when 800,000 Rwandans were butchered like sheep? Where is the United Nations while the same thing happens in Sudan today? Perhaps if I were running the United States, I would be less inclined to seek input from the French and Germans and more inclined to "unilateral solutions." But George Bush is a more patient man than I. Perhaps the world is better place for that patience. Perhaps it is not.

I do know that the debate is not enhanced by those who through ignorance or callous disregard for the truth, seek to compare America to Nazi Germany, our soldiers to Pol Pot, or our leaders to the Taliban. I have no tolerance for those who claim Wal-Mart is like the Nazis or draw American soldiers as swine in the muck.

Yes, Chris and Jana, this sounds like America to me. This sounds like the same country that defeated Nazi Germany and Japan, that won the cold war and that has leaders who recognize evil, are willing to call it evil, and are then willing to do something about it.

Yes, this is my America and I'm proud of it.
 

Monday June 27

More letters

Greg-

Napolitano met with Eduardo Bours, Governor of Sonora, Mexico a couple of weeks ago, and issued a joint statement.  The link is below.  One quote I thought interesting: "Our goal and responsibility is to ensure the best quality of life for the people of both states."  Since when is it the goal and responsibility of the Arizona Governor to create the best quality of life for the citizens of Sonora, Mexico?  Do we really expect the Governor of Sonora to try to achieve the best quality of life for the citizens of Arizona?  Wouldn't that be an abdication of his duty as well?

Name withheld

Greg,
I was interested to read the comments of Name Withheld, who claims to have been an observer of the District 20 recount. I was not an observer, but there are some problems with his/her account. First, in all the hours of certification hearings and the many news reports, never once has an official from Maricopa County provided such an explanation. No one else has claimed to have looked at and recognized the faulty ballots and, in fact, I have a written statement from another LD20 recount observer saying that Name Withheld "is way off base" on this.

Second, let's not confuse accuracy with consistency (repeatability). Even if Name Withheld's statements were correct, it does not explain why the machines read the faulty ballots differently on the original and recount runs. Given the documented consistency of these machines, ballot markings not read the first time would not be read the second time, within a very small error rate.

Third, if indeed rerunning the ballots can produce a 4% change in overall votes from early ballots, then the entire 2004 Primary for Maricopa County and every race prior is flawed, since problematic early ballots, which surely appeared in other races, were not recounted. Because early ballots make up over half of all votes, every race since 1996 that was settled by 2% or less is compromised. The truth is that the machines should be consistent in reading any writing instrument within an extremely small margin of error. Election officials have not provided an adequate explanation for the huge difference seen in the LD20 recount, nor have they provided any reason to believe the problem is fixed.

By the way, if Name Withheld was a public observer of the election, and if he/she really has a complete explanation for what happened in LD20, why is the name withheld?

Tom Ryan
Arizona Citizens for Fair Elections
 

Seeing red over Greene

Some folks thought I was too hard on John Greene last Friday.  Here's a sample

Okay Greg, and you can quote me on this. At least John Greene has the courage to get out there and establish a stake in the race. While everyone else is ducking or hesitating at least he is ready to run. Let's give him credit for that!
Barry Aarons

Sort of reminds me of my favorite Teddy Roosevelt quote.

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better...

Memorize that one and recite it to your kid each night.

Kyl on the Red Cross

As Congress scrutinizes the financing and operations of the United Nations, we have also found an unfortunate need to focus on other multilateral institutions that receive significant funding from the American taxpayer.  One such organization is the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
 

Read the whole thing
 

Friday June 24

So that's what that huge "Thud" sound was...

Former Senate President John Greene launched a lead balloon at 11:43 Thursday morning when he emailed the entire Republican universe that he was running for Governor. 

I said to myself, "my gosh, John Greene is a great guy, he was a good Senate President and he would make a great Governor, but he's a pretty lackluster campaigner and he got pummeled by Andy Thomas in the AG race." 

But my instincts about candidates are really bad sometimes, so I called a friend and said, yo, what do you think?  He said: "my gosh, John Greene is a great guy, he was a good Senate President and he would make a great Governor, but he's a pretty lackluster campaigner and he got pummeled by Andy Thomas in the AG race." 

I really felt like I was in a fog, not really understanding what was going on, when a Democrat friend of mine offered to translate Mr. Greene's announcement for me.  So here's his statement with subtitles. 

(No offense John, and if you get elected, I'd really like to run Commerce.)

####

Statement by John Greene, June 23, 2005

I have decided to do things differently. (I have no campaign staff or money.) Rather than spending precious resources and weeks of planning for a formal announcement speech, and asking very busy people to stand next to me in the Arizona summer sun while I deliver a speech, I am declaring my intention to run by news release and this statement. (Even my family refused to appear publicly with me for this ridiculous charade.)

Why I Am Running

After much soul searching and with a great deal of humility, I am today announcing that I am running for Governor of our wonderful state. (Matt Salmon really pressured me into this.)

When I served as a State Senator and then as Senate President in the 90s, I experienced the great satisfaction and joy of public service, and of making a difference for the People of Arizona.  (Since entering the private sector, nobody kisses my ass anymore…I miss that, I really do.)

We face extraordinary challenges in Arizona today and we are rudderless and adrift without a strong leader we can trust at the helm.  (I know we live in a desert, but sailing is where my heart lies…)

I am running for governor because I want to again make a difference for the People of Arizona by restoring civility and integrity to the office of governor, by meeting the difficult challenges we face head-on, not just talking about them, and by setting a course to a place of greater prosperity for all Arizonans. (I am so effing sick and tired of billable hours I could literally kill myself, seriously.)

In the coming months, I will be traveling from one end of the state to the other, asking questions and talking about the issues and challenges facing Arizona and how I intend to address them as your governor and move us forward.  (JUNKET!!!)

Today, I would like to briefly state my vision for Arizona’s economic future, contrast my leadership style with that of the incumbent governor and say a few words about our border problems. (Immigration polls so very, very well.)

There are, of course, numerous other important issues, including education, healthcare, transportation and our environment, and I will address them at another time. (Like, in my next ill-fated campaign.)

Arizona’s Economy – Part I - Spending

Politicians love to use the word “vision,” but they’re often not looking past their noses.  (Huh?)

The sad truth is our state is being run by a politician who does not see beyond her next political office. (Which, as I’ve alluded, is somewhere on her nose.)

Arizona is on its way to a financial train wreck in the coming years, unless we start getting serious about the future and stop living only for today. In the balance is the kind of state we will leave to our children and future generations. (It’s about the children, that polls well too.)

In the short time the incumbent has been in office, our budget has swelled by almost 35%. That, my friends, is a definition of “out-of-control,” if there ever was one. (And our Republican-controlled Legislature has been powerless, powerless, to stop her – except for the major budget deals they strike with her each session.)

The incumbent has the misguided perception that revenues will always increase to support this level of insane spending. Programs appear manageable now, but that will change. Unless we make some tough choices now, get a handle on unrestrained spending, and get serious about economic development, our economy will eventually collapse under the weight of the projected enormous growth and aging of Arizona’s population. (I know about revenues, when I was President of the Senate we were in the black – that’s why I cut taxes every year, and wiped out any cushion for a downturn.)

And to make matters worse, many of Arizona’s entitlement programs are on automatic pilot because of court decisions and initiatives. The cost of these programs will increase automatically and exponentially with anticipated population increases, regardless of Arizona’s changing needs and financial condition. (Damn you newcomers! Damn you! Also…please vote for me, John Greene.)

It doesn’t stop there. The governor likes to spend money we don’t even have, artificially piling up future obligations that the state will eventually have to pay back. (Whereas I will cut taxes and gut revenues again, that the state will...umm…eventually have to…ummm…But I digress.)  The governor likes to resort to what I call “smoke and mirrors” such as “revenue enhancements” which is a euphemism for transferring off-budget funds to pay for general fund programs and “forward funding” schemes where current spending or expenses are magically pushed into future fiscal years.  (Whereas I like to “do things differently” and not “waste resources and time” by having supporters at my “campaign announcement”.)  These transfers and deferrals will eventually have to be paid back, straining future budgets, but it allows the governor to spend more now, win votes from the benefited constituencies and avoid the tough choices, all while eyeing her next political conquest.  (Which, again, is located on her nose.)

I would note that when I was Senate President, we took the financial hit and reversed all of the smoke and mirrors perpetrated by prior administrations. (All of them! Except the ones where we cut like one tiny, minor tax just so we could say we had “cut taxes every year”…Oh and revenue sweeps, we kept those.  Anyway…)  We also created the rainy day fund to protect against the cyclical hills and valleys of state revenue collections. We called that “truth in budgeting.” Unfortunately, the smoke and mirrors are back with a vengeance. I will change that.

Your money burns a hole in the incumbent governor’s pocket. (She just can’t wait to spend it for the “public good”, when we should be transferring it to businesses in the form of tax cuts and incentives!)

Letters, we got letters...

Gosh, mention Nazis and Democrats and people get ticked off... (you may want to read the June 23rd entry first.)

Greg, 
It seems clear that the primary purpose of E-Pundit is simple partisan
politics, exclusively focused on attacking everyone (like me) who disagrees with the Bush/GOP View of the world; nonetheless, below I have attached an excerpt from an article in re your insinuation that Democrats are the only scum who throw Hitler references around wildly.  And no, I'm not defending any jackass who demeans the other party's intentions or morality strictly to score partisan points...In fact, to quote someone,

"This unconscionable escalation in rhetoric not only cheapens the political debate, it also diminishes the horror of the atrocities committed by the monsters who slouched their way into the 20th century. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates the vacuous mental state of the speakers and the political party they represent." 

The only caveat I would add to that speaker's view is to change the word "party" to "parties" in the last sentence.   I hope you know me well enough to know that I work with folks on both sides of the aisle, not because I have no values, but because most people have good values - yeah, even Democrats. Oh, and by the way, the article doesn't even count Sen. Santorum's recent foray into this cesspool (which was awesome by the way - he attacked the D's for doing it, then did it himself 6 weeks later).  Maybe, just maybe, the fault for this garbage lies with scumbag people desperate to vilify others, and perhaps both our parties have their fair share of these cretins.  Or maybe, I'm just a dope-smoking, underemployed, unintelligent Democrat living at my parents' house.   Nonetheless, I will confess to being a huge Starbucks fan (though not an employee) - it's good coffee, even if I don't understand why they have their sizing system measured in Greek, or Italian, or whatever the hell language that is.

Name Withheld.

My Response...

This guy is obviously right...Starbucks sizing system is confusing.  It took me months to learn that the drink I order is actually called a Double, Tall, nonfat Cappuccino.  If I would have understood that espresso with steamed milk is actually cappuccino, I would have bought a different domain name.  Of course, "Cappuccino Pundit" sounds pretty effete.  Frankly, "Espresso Pundit" is pretty silly as well.  Especially since I gave up coffee for Lent and never went back...but I digress.

He's got a point about the rest of it too.  The Democrats don't have a monopoly on idiotic references to Nazi's and the Taliban.  Here's an example that's famous in local circles.  I will add that these Republicans paid a heavy price but Basha received no criticism whatsoever.

As for the guys who live with their moms and work at Starbucks after spending 5 years and $100,000 getting a degree in Diversity Studies, I was talking about "liberals" not "Democrats."

There are some really awesome Democrats.  Many of them are Espresso Pundit fans, some of them are clients, but unfortunately, few of them get elected.  It seems like the Michael Moore, Howard Dean, Dick Durbin wing of the party goes to Washington.  The rest stay here and write me letters. 

Here's an update on the District 20 recount debate. 

Thursday  June 23

The Future of the Democratic Party?

Bereft of ideas, devoid of historical perspective and shielded by a sycophantic media, the country's political left has chosen to spend its wilderness interval engaging in an increasingly shrill fit of name calling.

Howard Dean has shown the comic side of this trend and is well on his way to becoming a laughingstock. But there are more serious examples.

Tom Liddy took Senator Dick Durbin to task for outrageously equating the guards at Guantanamo Bay to those who ran the Soviet gulags, Nazi camps and Cambodian killing fields. Then fellow blogger Chris Thomas actually comes to Durbin's defense:

Did Durbin's analogy go too far? Perhaps.

Perhaps? Perhaps? Chris, the Nazis slaughtered nine million people in the death camps alone. You may want to make the point that you don't think people are being treated well at Gitmo, but to be credible, you have to disassociate yourself from senior Democratic officials who equate U.S. soldiers with the Gestapo.

Of course, this isn't the first time a prominent Democrat has declared that policies that he disagreed with were as bad as the Nazi's.

In February 2004, Arizona Democratic icon Eddie Basha lashed out at Wal-Mart:

"I call it the economic holocaust," Basha, chief executive of Bashas', the state's largest homegrown supermarket chain, said in an interview with The Arizona Republic. "It's no different than what the Nazis did in World War II. It's a blitzkrieg. They are doing economically what the Nazis did militaristically."

My gosh, is that the most insane quote you have ever seen? Wal-Mart beat the self-proclaimed chubby grocer's prices and "It's no different than what the Nazis did in World War II?" Undercutting Basha's on milk and eggs is "no different" than the extermination of six-million Jews?

Closer to home, Jana Bommersbach used her column in this month's Phoenix Magazine to compare Christian Conservatives in Washington to the Taliban. Sure, the crazies who burned villages, massacred civilians and sold young girls into sexual slavery were just like Bill Frist and John Shadegg. If the Republicans continue to control Congress, by golly, they will start beating women with extension cords as punishment for exposing their ankles. Because, like, you know, there's no difference.

This unconscionable escalation in rhetoric not only cheapens the political debate, it also diminishes the horror of the atrocities committed by the monsters who slouched their way into the 20th century. Unfortunately, it also demonstrates the vacuous mental state of the speakers and the political party they represent.

UPDATE  This post has generated quite a bit of response. 

Here's Joanie Flatt's view

Reading Greg Patterson this afternoon, I found myself in an odd position. I was nodding my head as I read through his blog.

Don't worry, she's ticked off by end.

Wednesday June 22

I got an email from an old friend:

Here is something for your blog.  Check out the correlation between the map showing the areas of the U. S. with the highest marijuana use and the general election map showing areas supporting John Kerry.  I knew those Kerry supporters were a bunch of dopes, now we know why.  They are also a bunch of dopers. 

Good idea.  And indeed, the correlation is remarkable.  The question in this type of analysis is this:  Does correlation imply causation?  In other words, are they stoned because they are liberal, or perhaps liberal because they are stoned?  Or is there a cause that is common to both of them?  Maybe they are liberal and stoned because they got degrees in Diversity Studies and live with their parents while working at Starbucks. 

Saturday June 18

Here's another email

Greg

You’re pretty strong on the Benson beat, so I’d like to suggest an idea. Benson draws things that, if he were to write them or say them, would probably get him fired, but at least would get him painted as a bully, a hopelessly one-sided ideologue, a bigot, and a ignorant bomb-thrower. But because he’s a cartoonist, he’s just our lovable, irreverent, Pulitzer-prize winning Benson.

Friday June 17th

Goldwater's Robert J. Franciosi debunks the latest leftist diatribe from John Talton here.

More importantly, Robert asks the fundamental question.

How good is a journalist who writes the same three columns over and over, and who can be contradicted by the results of a two-minute search on Google?

I've stopped debunking Talton.  The only thing more boring than reading his three columns over and over again is reading my rebuttals to his calls for European Socialism, more gay night clubs for the "creative people" and rants against Wal Mart and the President. 

I've also stopped reading Talton.  His columns read like dime store erotica, after a couple minutes, you realize it's just going to be the same thing over and over again. 

Looking at the Republic's latest circulation figures, it appears that I'm not the only one who has stopped reading his "work."

Local Guy Makes it Big.

Arizona based Alliance for School Choice's Clint Bolick hits the punditry bigtime in yesterday's Wall Street Journal.

Discussing the Florida School Choice programs:

The usual cast of characters that has opposed parental choice programs in other states--teachers unions, the American Civil Liberties Union, and People for the American Way--mounted a legal attack on the Florida program as the ink was drying.

Thursday June 16th

Stick a fork in Mary Rose, she's done.

I've already stated why I'm not a Mary Rose basher.  I'm not going to change that now.  But here's Phoenix New Times doing what they do best.  There's a term for it, it's called, let me see...I think it's...oh yeah, "reporting."  As opposed to what Chip and Dip at the Republic do which is "printing" press releases, talking points and gossip.

Name the top local stories of the decade:  Colorado City, Sexual abuse and subsequent cover up in the Phoenix diose, The Baptist Foundation Collapse, Conditions in Arpaio's Jails, and Colangelo's financial management of the Diamondbacks to name a few and it's New Times that broke them. 

This is the best commencement speech I've ever read

Steve jobs to the Stanford graduating class of 2005, on his adoption, dropping out of college and being diagnosed with cancer.

Here's the part about dropping out of college

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Tuesday June 14, 2005

Here's a special offer to Espresso Pundit Readers...

Today only, I present to you at no additional cost, the keys to happiness.  The good folks at Cool Avenues normally regale us with papers such as "The Roadmap for Fixed Income and Derivatives Market"  fascinating reading to be sure.  But today they have provided the 10 keys to happiness. 

1. Don’t equate happiness with money. People adapt to income shifts relatively quickly, the long lasting benefits are essentially zero.

2. Exercise regularly. Taking regular exercise generates further energy, and stimulates the mind and the body.

3. Have sex (preferably with someone you love). Sex is consistently rated as amongst the highest generators of happiness. So what are you waiting for?

4. Devote time and effort to close relationships. Close relationships require work and effort, but pay vast rewards in terms of happiness.

5. Pause for reflection, meditate on the good things in life. Simple reflection on the good aspects of life helps prevent hedonic adaptation.

6. Seek work that engages your skills, look to enjoy your job. It makes sense to do something you enjoy. This in turn is likely to allow you to flourish at your job, creating a pleasant feedback loop.

7. Give your body the sleep it needs.

8. Don’t pursue happiness for its own sake, enjoy the moment. Faulty perceptions of what makes you happy, may lead to the wrong pursuits. Additionally, activities may become a means to an end, rather than something to be enjoyed, defeating the purpose in the first place.

9. Take control of your life, set yourself achievable goals.

10. Remember to follow all the rules.

Monday June 13 2005

Rearranging the Deck Chairs at the LA Times

Michael Kinsley shook up the editorial staff of The Los Angeles Times recently, transferring four of his eleven writers, letting one go, and outsourcing some editorials to freelancers.

You may have followed the story of the free falling circulation at the Times.  the paper is hopelessly out of touch.  If Kinsley's restructuring leads to a new crop of young and hip leftists to replace the old crop of formerly hipp(ie) leftists, then his efforts are doomed. 

The article is not without humor. 

But many on the newspaper's staff knew what was coming because Mr. Kinsley, who was hired to oversee the newspaper's editorial and opinion pages last spring, accidentally left a Power Point document describing his plans on a Xerox machine in their office in early May.

As Homer Simpson would say...D'oh. 

It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to realize why circulation is falling.  People like to read and associate with people and ideas with which they agree.  You can change their views on the margins, but it's not likely that I'm going to read Jon Talton's columns for a year and suddenly decide that I should move to a real city like Denver and spend my days lobbying for a national health care plan.  No, it's much more likely that I'm going to do what most of my friends have done--get really ticked off and cancel the paper.

Perhaps that's why circulation numbers are especially dismal at blue papers in red states.  The Republic and LA Times are prime examples, and the tragedy that has followed Keven Wiley to the Dallas Morning News should be a J school case study. 

In the wake of a costly circulation scandal and with the economy soft, the Dallas Morning News last fall laid off 65 newsroom staffers, many highly regarded veterans among them. The housecleaning has shattered morale, and questions swirl about how management decided who would get the ax.

Here's an interesting letter. 

Greg

Actually, I do think it's a big story, I just don't know much about it or have anything intelligent to add.  Of course...come to think of it, that doesn't usually stop me from commenting. 

Update

I just got this letter in response to the previous post.

Hi Greg,

On Friday, I requested everything that the AG, the SOS, and MC recorder's Office has on the recount.  Will will be looking at this in the Senate Government Accountability and Reform Committee next year (unless problems in that office are solved before then).  The article on Sunday was quite timely.

Jack Harper                                                                           Arizona State Senate/District 4

June 11, 2005

Here are more of your letters.

Check this guy out...

If you are looking for an intellectual treat, check out Coyote blog.  This Phoenix based site epitomizes all that is revolutionary in blogging.  Ten years ago, this guy would have been that interesting if annoying guy at work who was always cornering coworkers in the lunch room and regale them with his theories on global warming.   Now he posts his thoughts for anyone to read and shazzam, thousands of people tune in to see what he thinks.

So what makes this guy interesting?  This should sum it up for you.  He's an outdoors enthusiast who went to Harvard and Princeton and now owns a business that runs campgrounds on government land.  That's an interesting enough background that he's probably be a pretty entertaining left-of-center blogger.  But he's distinctly Libertarian and could be writing for Cato or the Goldwater Institute. 

Here's his full bio

I have an MBA from the Harvard Business School and a mechanical engineering degree from Princeton University (go tigers), both of which provided fine diplomas that grace the wall of our laundry room but which taught me very few skills that are any help day to day running a small business.

My Company is primarily in the business of running recreation facilities on government lands.  Typically, we lease certain facilities from the government (e.g. campgrounds, marinas, stores) and run them under concession contract, paying the government a percentage of sales. This percentage is typically competitively bid.  Since we pay the government, rather than vice versa, our relationship is more one of tenant to landlord, though we must agree to many more operating standards and restrictions than is typical of most tenants.   My current business is one of those happy confluences of interests, combining my political interest in private alternatives to government management with my personal interests in recreation and the outdoors

And this is part of his latest post.

The NY Times has somehow decided that one of America's real problems is widening income distribution, or more specifically, the exponentially increasing wealth of the top tenth of one percent of US earners.  The series seems to be running to about 47 episodes (actually 10), but a key article is here, entitled “Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind,”  There are a number of ways to attack this article.  One is to fisk their really abused and misused numbers, which George Reisman does here on the Mises Economics Blog. 

Lets accept that the very very rich are getting richer.  So lets move from there to the question of...

"so what?"

The Times is a little weak on the "so what".  I presume that in their intellectual-statist readership,  it is an axiom that rich people suck and rich people getting richer sucks more.  However, it is possible to pull out four things the Times extended editorial-masquerading-as-a-news-story finds bad about increasing income inequality:

• As the rich get richer, there is less money left for the rest of us
• The process of the rich getting richer reduces opportunities for the rest of us
• Having very rich people around make the rest of us feel bad
• The rich are only getting richer because the rest of us are subsidizing them through tax policy

As they say, read the whole thing.

June 9, 2005    

Wow, did I ever get letters about Benson...

If you missed the original post, just scroll down past the letters.

I was CCd on this letter to the Republic. 

Gentlemen: I'm sure I'm one of hundreds of thousands of loyal citizens of this nation who are outraged at Steve Benson's frequent treasonous portrayals of our U.S. military; but he has finally gone TOO FAR with his most recent piece of anti-American garbage.  If you are a self-respecting newspaper organization that considers itself in any degree loyal to this nation and supportive of our troops fighting to defend freedom from tyranny and terrorism, you must finally pull the cord and cut off this spoiled child, Benson, who long ago proved himself a traitor to his family and his church, but now confirms himself a traitor to his country as well!   When a nation is at war, treason is still a punishable offense.  Although our government may not prosecute or reprise such acts of traitorism, your newspaper should at least refuse to compensate and promote them any longer. 

Name withheld (Although he used his name on the copy that was sent to the Republic)

Ah. Greg,

Nothing Benson does offends me anymore because he has no core values against which to rate his actions. So I can't worry about that too much. 

As for the Governor and the merit selection there is no doubt that merit in effect means, "whoever the Governor wants," that's reality. If that offends us for example if we think that some legislative advise and consent would improve the pick then we ought to be advocating for that. Unfortunately truth be known I am not sure it would make much of a difference.  Whatever, as the kids would say! 

Name Withheld

Greg

Paul Davenport reported in May that 17 out of Napolitano's 22 judicial appointments were Democrats (article below).  This will be 18 of 23 with the impending Bales appointment.  Our liberal Governor is batting over .780 when it comes to appointing fellow Democrats.  I'm sure glad that "merit" selection has taken the politics out of the judicial selection process.

I don't know how Arizona voters were ever hoodwinked into giving up their democratic rights in favor of this sham "merit" selection process, a process that of course took the judicial selection power from the people and gave it to lawyers appointed by the notoriously liberal state bar, as well as the Supreme Court's Chief Justice.  But of course, there are judicial retention "elections" in which the members of our state's judiciary have the daunting task of literally defeating nobody in order to maintain their seats.  In over a quarter century, 2 (yes, 2) judges have been turned out in these phony elections.  Trust me when I tell you that the success that sitting judges have had in these "elections" is not because our judiciary is so stellar that only two of them have deserved to be turned out in nearly 30 years.

Name withheld.

Greg

Your Benson blog is way off base. I view the basic purpose of a political cartoonist as being to generate public discourse. You needn't like what he draws, but I don't think he draws his cartoons to be safe. Like all political cartoonists, he draws them to get people to think. To get things in the open. And, I might add, he didn't run this cartoon when the Quran allegations were made public several weeks ago. This cartoon was published After the Pentagon stated "No, it didn't happen." and then flip-flopped and said "Yes, it happened." [I'm sure conservatives everywhere know what the definition of "flip-flop" is - they coined it.]

I'm a proud veteran of 11 years of active duty service. I don't believe Benson's cartoon constitutes defamation* of our servicemen and women, but of a system not in control and certainly not accountable. As example, look at the Army and the Pat Tillman debacle; the pentagon's initial denial of crimes at Abu Ghraib (and subsequent flip-flop), and now at Guantanamo (and subsequent flip-flop). The service has always included mis-guided individuals, both in 1944 and now. We had out fair share when I served in the Navy during the Viet Nam war. I think the main difference is that now so many people are watching so closely things they never looked at before.

Maybe it takes a cartoon such as Benson's to get people to think and talk about what's going on and ask questions of the leadership. I don't always agree with his expressed points of view, but they almost always causes me to think and ask questions. Everyone is entitled to their opinion; that's a Right guaranteed by the Constitution. For me, however, there's a basic difference. Although all of us have been given the right to freedom of expression, there's a few of us that have actually earned it.

Jude Clark
Litchfield Park

June 8, 2005

Benson Crosses the line.

Steve Benson has crossed the thin line which separates legitimate political discourse from anti American propaganda with his outrageous and blatantly fabricated portrayal of the Guantanamo guards as pigs desecrating the Koran.  There was once a time in which the portrayal of United States soldiers as fat pigs wallowing in filth would not have been tolerated during a time of war--especially so close to the 61st anniversary of D Day. 

Although this defamation of America's fighting men and women is protected as free speech and part of a unique American protection of a free media, Benson's views do not have to be accepted or even tolerated by the American people. 

As for me, I think this is a more accurate representation of American soldiers.

Than this:

The Charade Continues...

From the Star

Gov. Janet Napolitano will have to choose among three nominees to become the 40th justice ever of the Arizona Supreme Court.

The Commission on Appellate Court Appointments on Tuesday nominated Scott Bales, Colin Campbell and Ann Scott Timmer to the high court.

Tim Nelson, the governor's chief legal counsel, said Napolitano will begin interviews of the three nominees later this week, with an eye on making an appointment by the end of next week.

Interviews?  Napolitano has been telling people for months that she is going to pick Scott Bales, but she might as well interview all three so she can at least claim that she didn't just pick her 48 year old friend for a lifetime appointment to the State Supreme Court.  This will be Bales' first experience as a judge--might as well start at the top. 

The next time someone--like fellow blogger John McDonald--tries defend the "merit" selection process, simply refer to this farce...case closed. 

June 7, 2005

There are two reasons why you won't find me among the Mary Rose Wilcox bashers. 

Here's number one.

August 13, 1997
(Phoenix, Arizona) - Today as the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors meeting ended, a man approached Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, pulled a gun out of a paper sack and shot her. The man, whose identity is unknown, was apprehended immediately. It is not known why the assailant chose to shoot her.

I tend to have a lot of patience with politicians who get shot in the line of duty and choose to remain in office.

The second reason is more mundane, but every bit as impressive--El Portal. 

John Kolbe once famously referred to Earl and Mary Rose Wilcox as "professional minorities" but he never had Mary Rose's chicken fajitas. 

Just about anyone can get elected and, with some politicians,  you wonder if they could ever get a real job.  Rest assured, Mr. Hot Shot Hummer driving Real Estate Developer, there is no job more real than opening a family owned Mexican food restaurant in the Barrio. 

But alas, if you have followed the Wilcoxes' saga, you will know the story behind this house.  The question was...

...how much would the unlawful demolition of the Turner house do to their Teflon reputations.  The answer appears to be a lot. 

Here was the first sign

The Maricopa County Special Health Care District Board unanimously chose financially savvy Mike Cowley Thursday night after two hours of publicly interviewing six candidates.

But Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, who supported candidate and political consultant Mario E Diaz to fill the seat, says she is calling for the county attorney to determine whether Cowley's application was received before the noon deadline on May 27.

When Mary Rose's candidate can't get a single vote and she's left whining about the process, the party's winding down.

But here's an indication that the party's over.

The program started accepting applications this year, and one was filed by Maricopa County Supervisor Mary Rose Wilcox, her husband, Earl, and a close associate of fraudulent financier Charles Keating.

Frankly there doesn't seem to be much meat on the Richard Ruelas story.  The story itself is the story.  The significance is that a prominent Hispanic, left-of-center Republic columnist considers her fair game. 

It's time to turn out the lights. 
 

June 5, 2005

I'm finally fed up with Benson.  I know that most of my Republican buddies stopped reading him even before they cancelled their Republic subscriptions.  I've been patient but this is the last straw.  I think it's well within the normal bounds of political cartoon decency to present Janet as a hero--even a Jedi--protecting the kids from the evil Republicans.  But presenting her as left handed is out of bounds. 

June 4, 2005

Lost in the kafuffle...

The imbroglio over the the Corporate Tax Veto has obscured another post-session prevarication perpetrated by the Governor. 

Napolitano on Friday vetoed a budgetary provision that would have stopped the Arizona Sports and Tourism Authority's receipt and use of certain state general funds. Those revenues total an estimated $1.2 million this year and $1 million next year.

The trust level between the Legislature and the Governor has been so rocky that every provision of the budget bills was summarized and placed in a black binder and during meetings between 9th floor and Legislative staff, each provision was highlighted--green for OK, yellow for "need's more work" and red for veto bait.

Below is a page from the infamous black binder that contains the TSA provision mentioned above.  You can clearly see that the title  "Disposition of tax revenues" is green. 

Even a broken clock is right twice a day...

Kudos to the Star--Pravda of the Old Pueblo--for coming out in favor of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. 

The star's view: The Central American and Dominican Republic Free Trade Agreement will create a level playing field, freeing up markets for U.S. producers.

Too often those who call for protection of native industries and demand that other countries abide by our environmental and labor standards are oblivious to the suffering caused by their well intentioned yet naive policies.  Here's the  perspective of a Kenyan whom I have quoted before. 

 
They send us aid, but it would be far better if they let us trade with them, develop our resources, set our own policies and determine our own destinies. People in developed countries can afford to worry about climate change, endangered bugs and a few hundred more dying of cancer before they are 70. We have to worry about millions of people dying of malaria, typhoid, dysentery and starvation. Millions of parents in sub-Saharan Africa must worry about where they will get their next meal, whether the water they drink will kill them and whether their babies will live beyond age five.

June 2

A friend of mine is a big shot in the Democratic party and when I mentioned how much trouble the Republican leadership is having finding a big name candidate to run against Janet, he asked the obvious question.  "What's he going to run on--all day kindergarten?"

He's exactly right, even if Republican leadership can find a candidate, they don't have an issue that puts her in a negative light and can be explained in 15 seconds.  Until now.

                                                                    (Photo by Ian Calkins)

June 1

Speaking of prevarication...

Lies are so common in politics that the media often print them without even noticing.  Here's the Business Journal's assessment of Jim Pederson's run against Jon Kyl. 

Nice start Jim.

Gotta have a label

Notice that the Business Journal article refers to Kyl as "the conservative Kyl" verses the "the wealthy Pederson." 

But then we get this little tidbit:

Last month, Pederson appeared at a Democratic rally in Phoenix with Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

Napolitano skipped that rally.  If Kyl is "conservative" what do you call a candidate who appears on stage with Howard Dean?

Of course, Pederson may prefer moniker "liberal" to "wealthy."  What with him being a man of the people and all. 

Here's my vote for coolest man on the planet.

Jeff Baxter played psychedelic music with Ultimate Spinach, jazz-rock with Steely Dan and funky pop with the Doobie Brothers. But in the last few years he has made an even bigger transition: Mr. Baxter, who goes by the nickname "Skunk," has become one of the national-security world's well-known counterterrorism experts.

Here's a heads up from the Goldwater Institute.

A small but important detail was overlooked by the press in the recent budget kerfuffle: the governor’s line item veto that restored a guaranteed minimum level of funding for the Arizona Tourism and Sports Authority (ATSA), which is charged with developing sports facilities—including the new Cardinals Stadium—in Maricopa County. The ATSA gets about 17 percent of its annual budget from an NFL income tax. As it stands however, if revenue from that source falls below a certain level, the Authority receives an automatic transfer from the state’s general fund.

The governor’s veto lacked the controversy and appeal of her simultaneous, more famous vetoes, because little ink has been spilled locally questioning the wisdom of publicly subsidized sports venues and teams. But policymakers would do well to heed the ample academic literature on this question—which is overwhelmingly skeptical of such investments—as they potentially face this issue again next year.

Indeed

Tuesday May 31

From my in basket...

Greg:

Re: "The Vetoes, What Happened?", 5/29/05 Republic:

Once again Scutari and Sherwood get the story wrong, and in the process lend yet another helping hand to Napolitano.

Scutari and Sherwood, co-presidents of the Janet Napolitano fan club, Arizona Republic chapter, claim that "The source of the disagreement over corporate tuition tax credits all comes down to the definition of 'sunset.'"  Anyone who has ever spent any time at the Legislature knows that the term "sunset" has a precise definition, that is, it means the legislation is automatically repealed after a certain amount of time.  For the sunseted law to remain in effect, it must be passed as a new bill by the Legislature.  If this is what the parties agreed to, there would be little to complain about with Napolitano's actions, especially since she has committed to calling a special session to pass out the bills, if they reflect the agreement accurately.

Clearly, the dispute does not hinge on the definition of "sunset" (that definition is undisputable), but rather whether the parties ever agreed to a sunset in the first instance.  And the article conveniently omits the fact that Napolitano defended the budget agreement, including her capitulation on corporate tax credits, in Tucson.  (Jarrett and Tibshraeny's column in Saturday's Trib. discussed this).  In defending her actions, she mentioned nothing about the sunset provision, even though this would seem to be highly relevant to a defense of her actions, given that if she is reelected, she will hold the veto pen in five years.

Finally there is this beauty: "If Republicans come back into session later this session [sic] and send Napolitano an English-language-learners bill and tuition tax credit in the form she wants, maybe the bad blood will stop boiling."  Of course, the burden is always on the offending party to lead the reconciliation efforts, and this sentence leaves little doubt as to how these "journalists" feel about the dust-up.  Ending the bad blood is simple--the Republicans merely have to give up everything that they want.

Name Withheld

Well said

Monday May 30 

(NOTE, be sure to read the update below.  It seems our mystery author's name may have been revealed. )

I have had a rather bizarre series of email exchanges with a comic book fan who's doing his best to slime with Senator Dean Martin.  He sending a mocked up news article from the "Daily Planet."

Here's my response.

To which he responded:

I actually thought this might be a fictitious  name, but I googled it and found his portrait.  Sure enough, Perry White is indeed the editor of the Daily Planet. 

Does anyone have any info on who this guy is?

UPDATE

A reader points out that Clark Kent is really Bob Haran. 

I've emailed Bob to verify this.

Oops, I guess I was wrong.  I just got this email

Friday May 27

My parents warned me this would happen...

Federal health officials are probing reports of blindness among dozens of men who used Viagra.

Dude, confirm with your date before you take the pill.

Mechamesque

Bob Robb used his Wednesday column to eviscerate Gov. Napolitano’s excuses for reneging on her budget deal.  The ninth floor response on Thursday sounds increasingly Mechamesque. 

Willard Did It. 

When accused of reporting campaign loans in lump sums to hide the names of controversial contributors, Gov. Mecham responded that his brother Willard had filled out the forms as best he could.  The “Williard did it” defense, was such a flagrant example of gubernatorial buck passing that it contributed to Mecham’s reputation as a laughingstock and only succeeded in dragging poor Willard into court with his brother.  

Liberal’s outrage over Napolitano’s agreement to sign the corporate tuition tax credit ultimately forced her to renege on the deal and she choose to rely on the “George did it” defense. 

Republican legislative staff met with George Cunningham and reviewed a pink-colored document detailing the agreement

Cunningham reasonably concluded that since the document accurately reflected the terms of the sunset provision, the matter would be handled routinely through legislative drafting. 

I’ve known George Cunningham for many years and, although we disagree on plenty of issues, he is a consummate professional with over 20 years of public service including stints as Gov. Mofford’s Chief of Staff, State Representative and State Senator.  The governor’s assertion that Cunningham simply looked at some sort of summary “on a pink paper” and not the actual language of the bill is simply not credible.  Especially since Republicans have produced a copy of the amendment with his OK on it. 

Don't ever ask me for a true statement again!

Mecham put a final nail in his coffin with this gaffe.

REPORTER: We've gotten several different stories. Can you tell us what a true version is?

GOVERNOR MECHAM: Sam, when I make a statement, you hadn't better see what the truth is -- listen, don't you -- you are questioning my truth. I gave you the statement.

REPORTER: I most certainly am not Governor Mecham.

GOVERNOR MECHAM: Don't ever ask me for a true statement again!

Everyone knew what he meant, but it was just too good of a sound bite to pass up. 

Napolitano's diatribe against Bob Robb contains a similar gaffe.

Cunningham reasonably concluded that since the document accurately reflected the terms of the sunset provision, the matter would be handled routinely through legislative drafting. It was not.

For the record, the governor's confidence in Cunningham is not shaken. He will continue to function as the governor's chief staffer involved in budget negotiations.

Now, back to facts.

Back to the facts?  What the heck were the two preceding paragraphs?  Fiction? Spin? Prevarication?

Note to Jeanine L'ecuyer, when you depart from the facts, you don't have to transition back with the phrase "Now, back to facts."

But, what was the point?

This is all very interesting he said...she said...kind of stuff between Bennett/Weiers and Napolitano and then Robb and L'ecuyer, but everyone's missing the point...Why would the Governor risk so much to gain so little? 

We assume she is savvy, and she knows that all you have in this business is your word.  Why would she irreparably damage important relationships and hang Cunningham out to dry over a measly $5 million tax credit?  She got everything she wanted in this budget.

The answer is...she is in serious trouble with her base.

Conventional wisdom holds that Janet's base is loyal and doesn't have anywhere else to go, so she has elected to stake her claim to the middle.  She's pushed tax cuts, courted the business community, and her State of the State address could have been delivered by Hull or Symington.

This strategy looked brilliant until the Arizona Daily Star came unhinged by the Tuition Tax Credit Bill:

Our beef is that the governor sold out public education in a deal we believe will eventually be seen as a huge blunder.

So there you have it.  Keeping a working relationship with the Legislature is a worthy goal...unless you lose your office because of it.  In the end, Napolitano realized that she had made a deal that her base wouldn't tolerate and in the face of surprisingly strong opposition, she reneged because she had no other choice. 

The rest is just spin.

Wednesday May 25

Gov. Napolitano reneged on her part of the much ballyhooed bipartisan budget deal and the silence from the mainstream media is deafening.

Here's the deal as presented in the May 7 Republic:

Lawmakers passed a compromise budget plan early Friday that gave Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano her dearest wishes: expanded full-day kindergarten and a downtown medical school.

At the same time Republican leaders were able to declare victory because they forced Napolitano to accept corporate tuition tax credits for private school scholarships.

The Arizona Daily Star was apoplectic

She once called corporate tax credits for scholarships "back-door vouchers." Last week, she opened the door to the signature issue for the right. Gov. Janet Napolitano has some explaining to do after negotiating a budget deal any right-wing conservative could point to with pride. Napolitano struck a funding deal with the far right that sets a precedent some believe will eventually damage public schools.

Some may like the deal, and some may hate the deal, but no one disputed that there was a deal, and Napolitano's veto of the corporate tax credits broke the deal.

Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano vetoed a corporate tuition tax-credit bill on Friday, torpedoing a plan that rival GOP leaders had brokered with her in order to reach a budget deal.

So where's the outrage? Symington or Hull would have been, rightly, crucified for such behavior.

But alas, Janet clearly lied and the editors merely sighed.

 

Udate

Bob Robb is, of course, the only columnist who has commented thus far.  He does a great job here

Monday May 22

Here's another item from the mail bag

Greg-

I don't know how much you cover the local news, but a KPHO Channel 5 hit piece last night at 10 on Barbara Leff was outrageous.  I Team investigator Morgan Loew (a reliable liberal) accused her and others of having a conflict of interest for sponsoring a medical malpractice bill because her husband is a doc.  The story made no mention of Ben Miranda, Bill Brotherton (plaintiff’s lawyers) or Linda Aquire (husband a plaintiff’s lawyer) voting on the same bill.  The story also failed to mention that Jon Hinz is the head of Fairness and Accountability in Insurance Reform, a plaintiff’s lawyer front group.  I think they should change the name to the Channel 5 "L Team."

Actually, I don't follow TV "news" at all.  The text of the story is printed here and the letter writer is correct, there is no mention of conflicts on the other side of the same bill.  And Jon Hinz is not properly identified

Here's Jon Hinz' real title.

Jon Hinz, director of Fairness and Accountability in Insurance Reform (FAIR), which is funded by the Arizona Trial Lawyers Association

So the director of the Trial Lawyers Association's political wing claims that legislators who have medical connections and vote on a medical malpractice legislation have a conflict, but no mention is made of the fact that trial lawyers are voting on the same bill. 

That's CBS in action.

Friday May 13, 2005

Here's a sample from my inbox...

Under the title--"Not just biased - lazy, too" comes this beauty.

In a metro area of 3.5 million people, Arizona Republic reporter Rebecca Burrough has to recycle the same person to make the same point twice within a two-month period?   

From a Wednesday, May 11, 2005 Arizona Republic story by Rebecca Burrough complaining about rising housing costs: 

Elementary-school teacher Rebecca Mahlerwein and her husband, Randy, feel lucky to have found a house they could afford last summer right before Valley home prices started their rapid run-up.  

The young couple had wanted to buy their first home in Tempe, where Rebecca teaches, but couldn't find anything in their price range. So they ended up buying in Laveen, southwest of Phoenix. 

"Houses we liked either sold before we could make an offer or were too expensive for us to consider," said Rebecca, who commutes 40 minutes each way to work. 

But the recent surge in prices is proving hard for some to overcome.

From a March 13, 2005 Arizona Republic story by Rebecca Burrough complaining about rising housing costs: 

But people in metro Phoenix are feeling the pinch between their incomes and higher home prices. 

Just ask Rebecca Mahlerwein. She teaches in Tempe but can't afford a house in the same city as her kindergarten pupils. The starting salary for the typical elementary school teacher in the Valley is about $30,000. Mahlerwein's husband is also a teacher. 

The couple found a house they could afford in the southwest Valley suburb of Laveen, but now Rebecca has a 40-minute drive to her classroom every day.

"I carpool with another teacher so that helps, but it would be so nice to live in Tempe," she said

Good catch.  The first article is about the difficulties faced by first time home buyers and the second is about the difficulties faced by public sector workers who want to live by their jobs.  Jay Butler, director of the Arizona Real Estate Center at Arizona State University is quoted twice as well, so it appears to me that the reporter wrote two stories from the same set of interviews. 

I agree with the characterization provided by the author of the email; this is simply lazy reporting.  I don't think it's part of a nefarious agenda, but in the internet age, you gotta either disclose that you are recycling old quotes, or you gotta actually, you know, like, interview more people.