Sheriff Neil Williamson Taking Heat

Sangamon County Sheriff, Neil Williamson is taking some strong heat since his son-in-law was arrested in the federal cocain ring investigation.

He has been painted with a pretty broad brush as if he had or has any control over what his son-in-law does. Granted, parents can and should be held responsible for what their children do, but when a child becomes an adult - they are on their own and no longer the responsibility of the parent.

Neil Williamson has done an outstanding job as sheriff and deserves better from the local media. Attempts to paint him in a bad light for something of which he had absolutely no control over is not just wrong, its morally corrupt reporting.

The sheriff has endured heat before and I have no doubt that he will endure this episode in time, I can only hope and suggest that the State Journal Register be honest with their reporting and not label a man for what someone else has done.

Democrats Crying Foul

Democrats are now crying foul over Senator Joe Lieberman's decision to run as an independent for this falls Connecticut general election.

It should come as no suprise to them, the Senator stated emphatically that barring Lamont trouncing him in the primary (which did not occur) he would be running an independent campaign. It was not a secret and he was honest about it. Now that he has been certified for the general election, Democrats are screaming.

Turn around is fair play, as the saying goes, and after some of their support in previous elections (John B. Andersons in 1980) along with their support of dead candidates, allowing candidates to drop out of a race and appoint a replacement in violation of state law (Minnesota, New Jersey) I find their hand wringing and crying foul to be hillarious.

The Senator stands a very good chance of upsetting their own nominee this fall (Lieberman is so far leading in the polls) with strong support from moderate to liberal Republicans. The Senator is an upstanding, honest, stand by his principles kind of guy and even though I am a die hard Republican, Joe Lieberman is the type of Democrat I can support.

A Rod Blagojevich he is not.

Foie Gras

Up until recently I had no clue what this delicacy was; that is until several animal rights nutties started their march through Chicago to have it banned from the menus.

As of today, it is now illegal in Chicago for any establishment to serve Foie Gras.

I am all for protecting animals from mistreatment, animals such as dogs, cats (which I am not a real big fan of) hamsters, etc. When I say mistreatment I am talking about abusing them for abuse sake. I am an avid bird hunter and make no apologies for walking out into the field, loading up a nice big twelve gauge shotgun and after the dog(s) point it out, to take aim and send feathers flying in all directions. I eat what I shoot and I enjoy every single bite.

As for Foie Gras, I am not a fan of liver and it makes little difference on whether its chicken, beef, or some other bird; but in protest of this lunacy, I actually had it for lunch today and I will admit it T-A-S-T-E-D G-R-E-A-T!

I would like to thank all the animal rights nuts for pointing this dish out to me.....I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Calvary Temple Public Works Meeting

Well tonight was the night for Calvary Temple and their final meeting with Public Works. In essence what they are asking for is a zoning variance to allow them to build R-1 homes along the Eastern edge of South 2nd Street, North of I-72 and due South of Southern View Village.

According to the church they plan on building single family homes and their church in this area. Now when I say single family homes, I am not referring to their IDA plan which does include low income housing subsidies. They apparently are saving that one for a later date.

Now, before I go any further I believe I have an obligation to let everyone know that I have a vested interest in this proceeding. I am a resident of the Timberline Trail Subdivision and also happen to be the President of the Homeowners Association. I never considered it before so I apologize for not making that clear earlier.

The problem with this developmentn has been how Calvary and their engineers will handle the watershed as the runoff water moves South, under I-72 and along side of Timberline. One change they have made is to construct a water retention pond along the East edge of their property and they believe that by controlling the amount of water that is discharged from this retention pond, they will not adversely impact the existing retention pond and homes that sit along the Nothern edge of Timberline.

Tomorrow Phil Marten with Marten Engineering will be reviewing the valves and natural drainage to the east of the subdivision to ensure the Board of Directors that whatever water is released will not find its way into the already existing retention areas. If that is the case, it would appear at this juncture that the HOA would reconsider its decision to oppose the development.

More to follow in the coming days.

Hat Tip to Capitol Blog

The Capitol Fax Blog picked up my comments regarding the recent State Journal Register article regarding a neighbor who apparently shot a dog which then deteriorated into what was a blatant anti-semitic rant. The State Journal Register claims that it screens all comments prior to posting them but that (as we hunters like to say) dog just won't hunt. I would like to thank the Capitol Blog for the hat tip and I respectfully give them one in return. This is a good blog with excellent sources of information and although I do not always agree with the editorials, I respect the editors enormously.


[Follow up to original article]

After writing my article, I dropped an email to the reporter who wrote the article and explained my disappointment in the papers decision to allow those posts, and after a few days I finally received a response. I have yet to send a follow up email, as I know it will do little good other than make myself feel better, but alas I do plan on following up with her tomorrow.

Here is the response in its entirety:

Thank you for bringing your concerns to my attention. I apologize for mydelayed response as I was out of the office on Thursday and Friday withoutaccess to my email account.

I am very sorry to learn how offensive you found some of the remarks on themessage board accompanying my story. I, along with all of our reporters, donot see or approve comments before they are posted. The newspaper's onlineeditor Jason Piscia and other editors are responsible for the screeningprocess with the message boards. I have forwarded you email to him, and heis aware of your concerns.

Please let me know if I can be of further assistance.

Thank you,

I did appreciate the response from Amanda Reavy and I am sure she was being honest with her comments; what bothered me the most is that it was an editor who was approving these comments and apparently they did not find them the least bit offensive. Maybe it was an overreaction on my part and yes I will admit that at times I can be a tad bit sensitive to such comments, but when a newspaper claims to screen reader comments to avoid such remarks and then allows then it calls into question their motives and honor.

Calvary Temple to appear before Public Works

It appears that the joint low-income housing / church facilities that Calvary Temple has been pushing for this past year will finally receive a final hearing before the Public Works Committee on Monday, August 21, 2006 at 5:00pm.

Over the past year Calvary has been pushing for approval of their plans to construct approximately 75 low income houses on their property bordering South 2nd street in Springfield and Southern View. Up to this point the entire project (including construction of their new church facility) has been tied up in committee with Mark Mahoney not pushing to have it brought forward.

Southern View has opposed it all along for several reasons, one being the watershed that would invariably effect them to the north. In addition, these homes are touted as homes worth more than a hundred thousand apiece and with the average Southern View home in the forty to 70 thousand range they are rightly concerned about their property taxes increasing substantially.

Appearing as a sleeping giant is the Trevi Garden and Timberline Trail subdivisions directly to the south. Trevi has an average home value of approximately one hundred and twenty thousand and Timberline Trail with an average of one hundred and fifty thousand, they have almost three hundred homeowners lining up behind them. They have also opposed the Calvary plans for the same watershed issues but on the property tax side it is for the opposite reason as Southern View. They have a considerable investment already in their homes, neighborhoods, and associations and any construction that would devalue those properties are going to lead to some potential legal action.

The Timberline Trail Homeowners Association Board of Directors has already met and voted to oppose any development by Calvary Temple that would lead to any increase in water transferred south of Interstate 72 in their direction. They have also voted to oppose any development of homes which would involve the construction of homes that would sell for less than $150,000.

It will be interesting to see how this develops tomorrow evening and with two separate City Council members (Mark Mahoney represents Southern View and Frank Edwards represents Trevi and Timberline Trail) each taking up their respective sides it could prove interesting.

Almost cried

From time to time I come across a tribute or website that gives thanks to our soldiers, servicemen and women, for their sacrifices and commitment to keeping us free that really grabs my attention.

The Iraq war for all the political hype that the press constantly puts out, is a war. Men and women are putting their lives on the line day by day for me, for you and for all Iraqis. Words cannot possibly express my thanks and heart felt gratitude for their valiant efforts.

I came across this link today which comes close. You can find the original article at backyardconservative.blogspot.com.

Post Katrina - Whose to blame?

It has almost been a year since Katrina brought her fury ashore in New Orleans and the Mississippi Gulf Coast, and left a disaster of epic proportions in her wake. New Orleans received the most in both aid and publicity of their plight and probably because it was the largest city in the disaster zone.

Parts of the city remain uninhabitable, with clouds of mosquitoes, festering sludge and stagnant water, dilapidated houses and buildings, and a rescue and rebuilding effort in tatters. Who is to blame? The Mayor? FEMA? The President? The Governor? The French for being foolish enough to build a city on top of a swamp?

All of them, including the homeowners for not leaving the city. I understand the plight of many and how they were caught in the seemingly endless and empty-filled promises of assistance and fervently believe that once help is offered the agencies have a responsibility to provide that help and not take a year to do it. However, in looking back it’s important to realize the many mistakes that were made which will hopefully prevent us from making them again.

The French were / or should I say ARE the biggest idiots of all. Nobody with even the slightest amount of common sense would in their right mind build a city on top of what is basically a swamp. Of all the dumb things they could have done, this is the biggest. Swamps are by their very nature unstable, and with New Orleans sitting approximately 8 feet below sea level, you would think that someone would have stood up and said "This is crazy! We are asking for trouble here." Nobody did, and now we can see the result - billions upon billions of dollars in reconstruction costs which at the end will simply put us back at the same point we started at.

The Army Corps of Engineers for the most part is a solid organization that does their job and does it right; HOWEVER!, after spending this past year dealing with engineers, I have come to the conclusion that most of them have spent little time reviewing disasters and preparing for them. One aspect of software design and engineering that is beat into the heads of mush at every college and university is that you TEST, TEST, TEST, and TEST the TESTS. You look for problems; you consider every possible point of failure and make adjustments for each one of them. If a programmer can get it right, I fail to see why an Army Corps Engineer cannot. Their planning of the levee system and shipping channel was a complete disaster and had they considered and double checked their own work and that of their contractors they could not have possibly missed the problems that were inherently built in.

Hours before Katrina came ashore, Mayor Ray Nagin had at his disposal, hundreds upon hundreds of city and school buses which he could have used to ferry the residents out of harms way. Did he do it? Nope, he sat on his ass and played the blame game. Now, what I cannot for the life of me figure out is why after this debacle, the residents of New Orleans in their infinite wisdom reelected this fool. Nagin may be a nice guy, I have no issue with that; however, his inept handling of this tragedy borders on the criminal. He ** LEFT ** people to die whereas if he would have simply used the brains that G-d gave a horse he would have saved hundreds if not thousands of people.

FEMA - What can one say about this organization besides that it should be dismantled, everyone fired, and reorganized. Federal Emergency Management Agency should be renamed "Federal Emergency MISMANAGEMENT Agency. They screwed everything up from not preparing for the oncoming storm, to wasting hundred of millions of dollars, to making unfilled promises in a political attempt to cover up their own ineptness. I understand that the FEMA director is a political appointment, but come on Mr. President, this idiot had trouble managing horses let alone a Federal Agency.

The Governor of Louisiana completely and utterly failed in her job. I am not sure if Katrina was more than she could handle or if she simply froze? Either way, she failed and because of that failure people died. There is nothing else that can be or should be said.

I lay far less blame at the feet of the President, he has staff to handle these agencies and problems and he cannot personally respond to each and every single one; however, he committed hundreds of millions of dollars in reconstruction money (which I believe was a huge mistake), and then failed to deliver it. One tenet of Judaism is to not make promises and commitments unless you are willing and able to deliver on them. PERIOD. Helping others is a Mitzvah and it is an important part of Judaism, but that does not require you to throw good money after bad.

Rebuilding New Orleans in the same fashion as before will only result in 10, 50 or a hundred years from now our grandchildren having to face the same type of disaster we are paying for.

The best thing that could happen at this point is to bulldoze the city under, return it to the swamps and give every homeowner $200,000.00 to move elsewhere. It would be cheaper and more efficient use of our tax dollars. The delta would eventually restore the area to its natural setting and we would not have to worry about the destruction of a city called New Orleans again.

sj-r.com article on dog shooting smacks with anti-semite comments

The State Journal Register posted an article today about a man who apparently shot a neighbors dog after the dog apparently chased after his turkey which was apparently running loose on the dog owners property. Now, if that is not enough to confuse the hell out of you; your better than I am.

As with most articles posted on the sj-r.com website, readers can leave comments on the stories which has certainly brought about some rather lively discussions. This one happens to have what appears to me (and this of course is only my personal opinion), a comment that smacks of anti-semitism.

This of course has nothing to do with the article or its subject matter, but the reference was clear to me.

"To: rondmon wrote at 8/17/2006 9:18:56 PM
Have them put up a yelloe flag & we will get to them...Do you want an Air Force jet(ours) or a F-16 piloted by a Jew?"

It is amazing how some people fail to stay on topic and then without any provocation, decide to bring up the "Jews". I would almost like to run into this moron just once, but then again its the Sabbath now, so I will mind my manners and just say "Shabbat Shalom".

Justice can be extremely slow

At the time of the Jon Benet Ramsey murder I was living in Wheat Ridge, Colorado; just a few minutes from her home and spent a considerable time in and around the Boulder area. It rocked the entire community including Denver.

I had little doubt then as I do now that the Boulder PD blew this case. They lost evidence, allowed police personnel to walk in discriminitely throughout the house and grounds, allowed Mr. Ramsey to wander through the basement area - and it was here that he found his daughter.

It has been ten years, ten years of a little girl going without justice, ten years of parents operating daily under a cloud of suspicion, ten years of accusations from wannabe reporters and freelance writers accusing Patsy Ramsey of her daughters murder, ten years of screwing up a case by the Boulder PD.

Justice can be slow, and although I have no idea if John Karr is in fact the killer, only time and the courts will tell us for sure, however if he is justice may be extremely slow but it eventually shows its face.

Cease Fire - will it last?

Doubtful, you need to remember what the purpose was behind the Hezbullah attack to start with. They had two primary goals in mind, extract prisoners Israel is currently holding for crimes they committed against the Israeli people and to create a backlash against the Israelis from within the Muslim community. As a secondary goal, if they could goad the Israelis into attacking it would whip up anti-semitism throughout the world and thus continue their quest in destroying Israel.

By crossing the Israeli and kidnapping two members of the IDF (Israeli Defense Forces), they thought they could extract some prisoners from Israel through an exchange (which Israel has mistakenly done in the past). How did Israel react? They hit back this time and hit back hard; unfortunately not hard enough.

What amazes me is that if Hezbullah had done this with any other country, the reaction would have been far different and certainly more devastating. Could you imagine what the United States would do if Canada or Mexico without provocation, crossed our border and kidnapped two of our soldiers? Now you say "Well, Hezbullah isn't Lebanon". To which I would reply - BULLSHIT! Hezbullah has been allowed to control the entire southern region of Lebanon for better part of the last 20 years, if that does not make them a part of Lebanon, nothing will.

Israel has also been very restrained in their response. Case in point. During WWII the Germans launched well over 4,000 boms and missiles at the civilian areas of England; their goal was to completely destroy England. They did this over an 18 month period. That time frame is important here. The Allied response was to drop bombs and missiles in such a manner that they killed over 100,000 military and civilian personnel. That included men, women and children.

In less than 31 days, Hezbullah has launched over 3900 bombs at Israel; bombs packed not only with explosives, but glass, metal fragments, nails, staples, etc. In effect creating the worlds largest claymore mine. These bombs have been specifically directed at civilian areas with the purpose of exacting as much civilian loss as possible on the Israeli side. Israel's response has been to target known military and command positions. What hezbullah has done (which is a war crime in and of itself), is position these military and command operations right in the middle of civilian areas.

Now, what is Israel supposed to do? Not destroy those operations and allow them to continue bombing their country? You cannot possibly think that any other sane country would allow the same would you? I thought not.

The cease fire that has been in place for a few hours now will calm the region down some, but with Hezbullah's refusal to disarm and their penchant for causing havoc and their blood thirsty desire to completely destroy Israel will unfortunately cause this case fire to fail.

Lebanon made their bed with Hezbullah and now is suffering the consequences of that action. You may feel for them and understand their plight, but they made the bed and it is up to them to fix it themselves. Without fixing it, they will never have peace.

What a weekend

What a weekend this has been; all in all it was a very enjoyable one. Unfortunately the kids did not have the level of success they experienced on Thursday or we had hoped for; however, we did enjoy watching them go through the program and hopefully will have better success in Louisville.

Since the schedule for them was relatively light, we were able to get out and around the fairgrounds on Saturday and Sunday. I would like to congratulate all the 4-h'ers on their respective projects, there was nothing there that I did enjoy. You made the effort, expended the time and resources and even if you did not win you can take away the knowledge that you have improved yourself because of it. Good luck next year!

I have to say that the conservation area has been greatly improved! although there are a few tough hills in the area, all in all Dawn was ab le to get around with just Oxford (service dog) assisting.

I would be remiss if I did not at least say hello to Bo, it was good running into you and hopefully you won't lose my number AGAIN!

Slow weekend

It will be a bit slow around the blog this weekend. Dawn and I will be attending the Illinois State Fair to watch her nieces and nephew as they show their cattle in the respective classes.

The two youngest won their respective showmanship classes yesterday, so it is turning ot to be a very successful trip.

The more I think about CWLP

The more I think about CWLP and how they handled this Sierra Club agreement the madder I get. The self appointed King of Springfield got upset when he lost the vote last week. So what does he do? He calls it back for another vote and that worthless wuss Mark Mahoney who was absent for the first vote knows he controls how it will end and there is no way he can vote against the self appointed King.

Mahoney was playing pure politics earlier today when he was critical of how it was handled, but he damned well knew he was going to vote for it.

The figures as put forth by CWLP just do not add up and they know it. They lied about the alderman being told previously (Todd Renfrow is someone whom I could never trust now) and are lying about the numbers and frankly they (Renfrow and his chief alien engineer) should be immediately fired. Do not hold your breath though, this King only fires Republicans.

Mahoney is a liar, a turncoat, a wuss, too damn chicken to stand up on his own two feet and I am fearful this moron is really going to screw some of us over on a proposed deal with Calvary Temple.

I can only hope that when its time to vote the next time the voters remember this fiasco and toss both of these leftists out on their preverbial ear;.

Mike Wallace shows his true colors

Mike Wallace apparently has become smitten with the Iranian President. Mr. Wallace recently completed an interview with the terrorist (why do old out of date reporters feel the necessity to interview these killers?) Ahmadinejad.

"You'll find him an interesting man," the 88-year-old Wallace said. "I expected more of a firebrand. I don't think he has the slightest doubt about how he feels ... about the American administration and the Zionist state. He comes across as more rational than I had expected."

Interesting? Sorry Wally, I find him nothing more than a killer and murderer whose hell bent on destroying Israel, interesting? No, I find this maggot deplorable, and unfortunately I now am finding myself labeling you the same way.

Mark Mahoney is a wuss

Alderman Mark Mahoney caved in to the self appointed King of Springfield tonight and voted to approve the Sierra Club deal that CWLP negotiated in secret.

Mahoney had previously stated that he had not made his mind up on the issue, which is a bald faced lie. Mahoney had no intentions of voting against this because to do so would have meant challenging the idiotic Mayor.

Thanks Mark you proved me right again punk.

Preferential treatment in employment

There have been numerous conversations, blogs, and editorials written on this particular subject and I really really really mean it when I say that I hate to bring this up again. HOWEVER! I was reading on the sj-r.com tonight a discussion regarding the Governors intern and employment policies and one of the posters caused me to really think about one particular issue.

As it currently stands in Illinois, Veterans are given preferential treatment when applying for jobs with CMS, the Governors office, and othere state agencies. In addition, many federal jobs have the same status applied to them (postal service to name just one). I fully support our military, they deserve far more than they are currently receiving but I have to admit that there are times that I get irritated when someone is given preferential treatment in employment just because of their service, etc.

This is a difficult subject matter for me for several reasons. First and foremost I am dating the most wonderful young lady that has ever graced the face of this planet. She is funny, witty, honest, compassionate, loyal to a "t", pragmatic, diligent, a great conversationalist, opinionated, tough as nails, kind, considerate of others, tolerant, gorgeous, sexy, and most of all she has the ability to put up with me for more than a few minutes at a time. She is also disabled. She cannot walk due to a hiking accident approximately 20 years ago and is confined to a wheelchair.

Prior to meeting her I had given the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) less thought than I had about the internal workings of the fertilizer industry. That said, I had some misgivings about some of the requirements that were being placed upon businesses by the ADA. I have now seen up close and personal the benefit this law provides to countless individuals and how even with the law, some still, although I believe it is unintentional, discriminate against these same individuals. The law is not perfect but it does provide some sense of normalcy to a life that is anything but normal; where an everyday task becomes a major obstacle for many.

I have no problem with providing these individuals some assistance in acquiring suitable employment in an environment that treats them with respect and dignity; yet, I do believe that you need to be first qualified. That is one factor that I think in some circumstances is missing when employement preferences are granted.

I would take it personally if she were denied employment on the basis of her condition (which is extremely difficult to prove - hence the preferences to avoid even the appearance of such a denial) and I mean VERY PERSONALLY!. So please understand that I am coming from a unique perspective here.

When it comes to granting preferences to someone who has no disability, who has seen not a second of combat and served the minimum allowable time in the military; I have a really tough time seeing how giving them preferential treatment somehow benefits society. I know I am going to really irritate some in the military and I truly mean no disrespect, they have my utmost respect for their service, yet it is only the few that I take to task.

Back to the discussion on www.sj-r.com tonight, Ashrak made the following suggestion when it comes to employment preferences for those in the military:

"Every soldier that serves in combat should be exempt from federal income tax. Then, remove all forms of preferential treatment for any hiring except the merits of the applicant's ability to do the job."

It got me thinking........I could agree with that statement! However I would change it to the following:

"Every soldier that serves either for a period of not less than 10 years or one that has served in a combat role shall be exempt from all federal and state income taxes, provided that if at any time that soldier should be elected to either a statewide office or federal office the exemption shall become null and void".

My thought is if you give 10+ years of your life to the military (that would include Army, Air Force, Navy, Marines and Coast Guard), you deserved a break and what better break to give someone than to eliminate their need to pay into federal or state income taxes. This would also apply to any military personnel who serves in a combat role. The exception would be that if you decide to run for public office you give up that exemption. I do not think politicians should benefit from a tax exemption after the huge pensions and health care plans they already get.

Then, remove all military preferences from employment. In effect a soldier would be receiving at the very least a 17% increase in take home pay.

Any thoughts? Am I way off base here or is this something that many could agree with?

Is Hillary in trouble?

A recent poll in New York among likely Democratic voters, 45% of them have an unfavorable view of the Senator.

The question now is, will this translate into a loss at the polls?

We can only hope!

Anti-Sematic Huffington Blog

Sen. Joseph Lieberman has been fighting for his political life in Conneticut and it seems that some on the faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaar left cannot resist the temptation to toss about some of the worst of Anti-Sematic towards Sen. Lieberman.

The Senator is a Democrat and I am a Republican, that will place us on opposite ends of the political spectrum, however, I cannot and will not ever tolerate the anti-Sematic comments being directed towards the Senator.

Sen. Lieberman is a man of integrity and without any doubt, loves his country. His ethnic and religious background has no place in this debate.

The Huffington blog has led the way in this hate filled rhetoric and it is deplorable. I can only hope that Senator Lieberman is able to defeat these hate mongers and send the likes of Huffington and moveon.org back to whatever rock they crawled out from underneath.

Blog change

When I set this blog up I misunderstood one of the settings (sign of old age) in that I was having to approve all of the posts.

I am not inclined to censor every single post and after figuring out how to change that setting I have changed it to allow the immediate posting of comments.

I still reserve the right to remove any post which I deem is libel or in bad taste.