Who is missing here?

A group of Congress entities came to Birmingham to rally support for the repeal of HB-52.   Among those who spoke was the Republican Jefferson County Sheriff on the difficulties the law creates, AL-07 Congress woman, Terri Sewell (D), Birmingham’s mayor, City Council President and at least one State Senator, Merika Coleman. Not reported as being there was Alabama Democratic Party Chair, Mark Kennedy, despite his many jabs at Alabama Republicans for passing the bill, also missing were the Legislature’s Minority Leaders to voice their support for fellow Democrat, Billy Beasley’s repeal bill, SB41.

Alabama’s R’s have issued the predictable defiant “look what you made me do” for the lack of federal immigration reform, neglecting to mention, it takes two to do the legislation dance.

 

And the worm turns…

Earlier, I scribbled about former State Rep./Elba City Schools Superintendent, Terry Spicer, and his maneuvering to keep his state pension.   According to the Dothan Eagle, Spicer has been fired by the Board on grounds he failed to advertise the position he moved himself into, thus pushing the date he collects his pension to age 60.  (As an aside after 25 years of undetected vice, Alabama state employees and educators can collect pensions regardless of age).  Whether this was response of an elected board to the will of the people or secret manipulation by anti-bingo ghost Republicans, is left to the reader.

Spicer’s next step will be no doubt an appeal where the Alabama Education Association will do its contractual duty to support a member and past friend of education.

 

 

Interesting HB-56 development

Looks like there maybe a split in the labor’s opposition to HB-56, Alabama’s anti-immigration law according to this article at In These Times.   The IBEW has declined to issue a statement condemning the bill unlike other unions.

Recall that Mickey Hammon,  who introduced HB-56 is/was an electrical contractor, whose bids were undercut by those using cheap Mexican labor while IBEW local 136 business manager claims credit for the anti immigrant Jobs4Alabama website.  Practical politics is a messy business AKA don’t poop where you eat.

More interesting was the response by Alabama Power to the In These Time’s post statement that utility was denying and cutting off service to illegals as the law requires.

“We have not made any changes as to how we handle or treat customers because of the new immigration law. The one incident reported that we may have turned someone away we have never been able to verify, and if it did happen, it is not our policy. Citizenship is simply not a requirement for getting service from us.”

Alabama Power has quite a bit of pull and makes for an interesting fellow traveler on the road to repeal.

 

 

Interesting

From the Birmingham paper, Muslim doctors run health fair, announce plans for free clinic in Hoover.  This is the South I see, one where people help others and accept each other for who, not what, they are.  Lets hope this continues and may St. Luke, the patron of physicians watch over them.

 

Another of those charming, bucolic Alabama moments

Alabama’s Republican’s decide enough is enough and remove Scott Beason from his position as Senate Rules Committe chair critter while figuring out how to defang his signature accomplishment, HB56, Alabama’s anti immigration bill while appeasing the majority that voted them in.

Secondily, former state Senator (and Elba City schools superintendent) pleads guilty to taking bribes but deftly arranges matters so he will be able to recieve a state pension.

Thirdly, a protest over HB56 in Montgomery by illegal immigrants leads to the finding they are legal immigrants and so while charged with trespass and disorderly conduct, they don’t get a court challenge over the immgiration law.

Lastly, the papers reported Alabama collected less in taxes per state resident than governments in any other state in fiscal 2009, study shows, and not a single legislator chimed into say their party was responsible, yet.

A White House petition worth signing

We demand a vapid, condescending, meaningless, politically safe response to this petition and a cookie at the White House’s online petition site.   I was signer # 9,394.  Vapid condescension seems to be a bipartisan response to something that would affect donor class, interfere with patronage and/or disrupt electoral calculations.

H/T: Reason

A pair of headlines that explain it all

First, A long, steep drop for Americans’ standard of living from the Christian Science Monitor.

Second, Wall Street’s resurgent prosperity frustrates its claims, and Obama’s from the Washington Post.

In brief since the onset of the Great Recession (or whatever you want to call it), the average American now has $1315 less in annual disposable income.  While Wall Street collectively lost $24.8 billion in 2008, 2009 saw earnings of $49.5 billion with about $8 billion this year.

Something missing here too

Alabama’s Republicans have released their talking points for next year’s Legislative Session, vague and short on specifics and missing any reference to the immigration issue they have created.  Lets hope a budget gets passed while every one grooms, postures and preens for the 2014 elections.

 

A few scribbles on the Polaroid PMP-700-4

This is a media player sold at Big Lots and probably other clearance stores on the when their gone, their gone basis.  While the slim pamphlet says it only supports plain text and LRC (Karaoke lyrics), I found thru trial and error that it sorta supports Mobipocket (mobi), fictionwise (fb2) and pdf files in the ebook reader.  It will display them and using the top scroller, can navigate by page (more or less) but table of content entries are not clickable. Which means to me its use to hold shop manuals is nil but ok for reading novels, etc.

Video and audio files generally play as long as the video size does not exceed 800×480 (or so) .  NTSC 16:9 dvd ready files do play sized to the display but there is drop out occasionally.   X264 encoded video is problematic, however, since I prefer avi format, not a problem to me.

Will leave aside the interface which is functional but spartan.

Something missing here …

The Democratic Party members of the Alabama House have revealed their legislative plans to increase employment, get teachers and state employees a pay raise, cut corporate income tax loopholes, eliminate the grocery sales tax and increase personal income taxes for high earners.   Yet, with all the ink, pixels, rallies and posts over immigration, no mention of repealing (or at least modifying) the anti-immigration HB56.