Month: June 2012 (Page 2 of 2)

In a recent New York Times editorial, Brian Schweitzer (D-MT) illustrates the past which necessitated anti-corruption laws:

In 1899 [mining tycoon William A Clark] decided he wanted to become a United States senator. The State Legislature appointed United States senators in those days, so Clark simply gave each corruptible state legislator $10,000 in cash, the equivalent of $250,000 today.

Clark “won” the “election,” but when the Senate learned about the bribes, it kicked him out. “I never bought a man who wasn’t for sale,” Clark complained as he headed back to Montana.

What I found particularly interesting, though, was how similar it was to an old gem I wrote some time ago:

1. Pay will be dependent on votes. Salary of Congressmen will be scaled down with each non-vote. That includes a vote of “present.”
2. Any campaign money received prior to 3 months before the election will be considered a violation of election law, subject to prosecution.
3. Any money received in excess of the maximum individual contribution of $10 will be considered a bribe, subject to prosecution.
4. Any money received from any entity that is not a citizen of the district a candidate wishes to represent will be considered a bribe, subject to prosecution.
5. While in office, the congress member shall generally be allowed private meetings only with constituents. The constituents’ names will be logged. The name of every non-consitituent seen by the congress member shall be logged and the meeting shall be recorded.

(Unfortunately, I have not yet reformatted my older posts to fit the WordPress format)

It seems that the Confederate wing of the Republican Party can have their States’ Rights and eat them, too.

There have been a couple of high profile plane crashes in the last couple of weeks. First, a small Sukhoi Superjet 100 with 50 passengers crashed into a hillside in Indonesia, killing all aboard:

Then two different crashes in Africa occurred in the last day or so. Of particular interest was this one in Nigeria:

Curious about the topic, I looked into recent airplane accidents at . What I found was interesting, but not unexpected. At first glance, I could see I could easily divide up the crashes into the following categories:

1. Helicopter/Military
2. Private aircraft up to small corporate jets
3. Commercial aircraft

What I found interesting here was that in the last group, only one occurred in a first world country. Whenever I hear people argue that government regulation is strangling business, this is the kind of thing that comes to mind. Our aircraft stay in the air, our buildings don’t routinely collapse, and we are rarely poisoned by our food. I’m not willing to change that to save a few dollars on the price of those things.