June 2003 Archives

A story in yesterday's Rocky Mountain News detailed the budget cuts Colorado school districts are facing as a cooling economy has lead to a decline in tax revenues. Hardest hit will be the Denver school district, which will trim $30 million dollars from its budget, leaving $517 million for the upcoming year. Denver counts 72,000 students enrolled.
How many people realize that works out to $7,180 per student? I realize that the budget cuts will cost some people their jobs, and they have my sympathy.
But for those who would raise taxes to increase school funding, I have a few of questions:

How much money is enough? Do you think the children would be better educated if $7,500, or $8,000, or $15,000 were spent per pupil?

If you were starting a new school from scratch, with no burdensome regulations from the state or federal governments, could you run a school for $7,180 per head? Could you run it for far less?

Whatever problems our school district has, underfunding is not one of them.

Jeff Trigg is an Illinois Libertarian and he has first hand experience dealing with punitive ballot access signature requirements. He calculates the numbers, and it ain't pretty.
Let me add to his comments by noting that gathering petition signatures is very expensive and time consuming. A popular and well-funded candidate can wind up using all his cash and volunteers' efforts just to get on the ballot, and have none left over for the actual campaign.

Don't think that isn't exactly how the career politicians intend the system to work.

Here in Colorado ballot access was liberalized for the 2000 election cycle. The Libertarians and other parties ran quite a few candidates, with some success. Some legislators have been trying to restrict ballot access ever since.

I'll be pulling over some recent entries from the old site and learning how to make changes here for a little while.

Product testing results from today's Rocky Mountain News:

A Lakewood man died after he and his uncle tried to show two boys that a protective vest would deflect a knife attack.
It didn't.
Gabriel Aranda, 26, died at St. Anthony Central Hospital Friday of a laceration to the heart.
His uncle, Amando Aranda, 32, was being held without bond at Jefferson County Jail Monday on a first-degree murder charge.
Police were called Friday afternoon to a home in the 9900 block of West 20th Avenue where Gabriel Aranda was found bleeding from the chest.
Inside, they found Amando Aranda, along with a 14-year-old boy and a 4-year-old boy.
According to the arrest affadavit, Amando Aranda told police he and his nephew wanted to show the 14-year-old, a cousin of the victim, what the protective vest could do.
"Gabe told Amando to grab a good knife," the affadavit said. "In the kitchen, Amando grabbed a long, black handled knife and poked the vest worn by Gabe. The knife penetrated the vest and Gabe's chest."

That's a bulletproof vest, fellas.

Andy at the World Wide Rant scooped this story yesterday.

Fireworks are illegal in Denver. So in honor of the upcoming Fourth, I did not just now go out and set off a couple of loud firecrackers on my back deck. My dogs, big, ferocious Malamutes, did not go scurrying off in search of safety.

This makes me think of the time, a few years ago, when my brother came into town to visit right on the Fourth. His little boys and their mother came out to the golf course that night with him and on that occasion I did not light a bunch of illegal fireworks purchased in Wyoming. They did not thrill at the sight of big mortar shells, in vivid blues, greens, and oranges, exploding against the black sky. I did not launch various missiles over the pond at the golf course where the colors did not reflect off the still water for added effect.

None of this happened, because fireworks are very dangerous, and the wise city fathers and mothers have decided that it is not in my best interest to do such things. I strongly recommend that whoever you are, wherever you are, you do not go out and do these things to celebrate our freedom.

Especially if it's illegal.