No GIS for Lake County: 21st Century Delayed Another Year

Alas, cartophiliac Mr. Heppler won't be getting his e-map fix in Lake County any time soon.

MDL reports that the Lake County Commission is planning to put off funding a Geographical Information System (GIS) for a year. Former equalization director Jerry Seidel proposed installing GIS last year, and the county agreed to budget half the cost in the 2008 budget and the remaining half in 2009. But now the county is shifting the latter half of that funding to cover equipment upgrades in the 911 dispatch center [see Elisa Sand, "County Commission Shifts Funding for GIS," Madison Daily Leader, 2008.09.04].

Now if the choice is as simple as cool online maps or being able to get hold of the sheriff, I guess I'd pick the sheriff, too. A number of folks would probably also prioritize patching our roads over computerizing operations in the equalization office. (Of course, if the equalization office had all their maps and records online, we wouldn't need to drive to the courthouse to look at them....)

Still, it's a shame to let the GIS project drop, especially if we've already paid for half of it. (Did that first half go through last year's budget? Commissioners, if you're reading, a little update, please?) Right now, if you want access to geographical information about Lake County, all you can get online is this static map of the county. Our fair county can't even manage to put tax records online the way Minnehaha does. At MinnehahaCounty.org, I can type in any address (for instance, KSFY's HQ at 300 N. Dakota Ave.) and find the legal description, lot size, property value and tax assessed (KSFY's building and lot are worth $2.3 million). Imagine how useful it would be to have information like that at everyone's fingertips here in Lake County (commenters questioning my fiscal policy could Google the actual value of my house!).

GIS would give county employees and citizens alike easy access to all sorts of geographical information that can be used to inform public policy and even business decisions. (Watersheds and FEMA floodplain info, lot boundaries, land use, changes in population... for a fuller rundown of what GIS can do, see GIS.com.) After some initial extra work in converting records from old maps and documents and the legacy computer system, GIS would help the equalization office and other county officials serve citizens faster and with better information.

GIS is an important component of making public information more accessible to the public. Even if we can't swing the money this year, I hope Lake County will look into ways to save money to put this project to work in the FY2010 budget.

Continuing the Double Standards: McCain Didn't Love His Country, and That's O.K.

"I fell in love with my country when I was a prisoner in someone else's."

—Senator John McCain, address to the Republican National Convention, 2008.09.04

Say what? So Republicans will cheer for someone who suggests he hasn't loved his country for his entire life? Did he not love his country when he enrolled at Annapolis? Did he not love his country when it was led by great men like Eisenhower and Kennedy? Did he not love his country when it stood up to the Soviet threat in Cuba? Did he not love his country when blacks marched with Martin Luther King to desegregate the schools and lunch counters and win full voting rights?

You're right: I'm a hyperpartisan jerk to take one line from Senator McCain's speech and blow it out of context into an indictment of his otherwise clear commitment to his country.

So how about the Republicans who raised a hyperpartisan stink over Michelle Obama's comment back in February about finding a new pride in her country?

Need a Job? Mundt Library Needs You!

Like books? Need a job? See RealMadison.org for information on the labor shortage at the Karl E. Mundt Library at DSU!

McCain Getting Convention Bounce on KJAM

KJAM is polling on the presidential race. Looks like the Republican doublespeak is working here McCain leads Obama 2 to 1. Drop by KJAM's website and cast your vote!

Surprisingly, the Libertarian cabal working at KJAM didn't include Bob Barr on the poll. What gives? ;-)

God Bless Community Organizers...

Republicans have changed their boogeyman from welfare queens to community organizers. I'm not sure alienting an army of civic-minded citizens who know how to organize things like get-out-the-vote drives is the wisest strategy. Expect the Obama camp to tear into that one.

The perfect response comes from a commenter quoted here and here:

...maybe someone needs to remind Sarah Palin
that Jesus Christ was a community organizer
and Pontius Pilate was a governor.

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Update 15:25 CDT: Organizers Fight Back. Uh oh, Sarah (and Rudy, and Gov. Pataki). You shouldn't have gone there...

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Update 2008.09.05 07:27 CDT: Rudy used to think community organizers were leaders worth praising. Oh yeah, and how does the GOP feel now about renowned community organizer Martin Luther King, Jr.?

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Update 2008.08.05 10:46 CDT: Who's been on the ground helping folks with lives turned topsy-turvy by Hurricane Gustav? Community organizers. Jim Wallis says community organizers deserve a big apology, and our thanks.

Gateway/MPC Also Fails to Deliver for South Dakota High Schools

Gateway/MPC dropped the ball on DSU and lost their business; now KELO reports the company's production line woes are also leaving South Dakota high schools in the lurch:

Tardy slips are going out to many laptop computers that were supposed to be delivered to South Dakota high schools by the first day of the new school year. Instead, some school districts are still waiting for those Gateway computers. And each day without the computers is setting teachers and students further back in their class work.

Baltic was one of fifteen South Dakota school districts chosen to receive the Gateway laptops to begin the school year. Baltic was supposed to receive 175 of the computers. But today, only fifty arrived [Perry Groten, "Baltic Receives First Batch of Laptops," KELOLand.com, 2008.09.03].

At the bottom, we find the state Department of Education still running some interference for a company that has abandoned South Dakota and good service:

The state education department says some of the computers that are to be delivered to South Dakota are still on the Gateway assembly line.

The department says another reason for the delay was the uncertainty over the laptop program fueled by funding debates during this year's legislative session [Groten, 2008.09.03].

Right. Blame the South Dakota Legislature for Gateway/MPC's inability to deliver its product on time to long-standing customers. Governor Rounds announced he had the funding for the laptops in May. Schools might still have been bound by their budget rules to place orders in July, after the new fiscal year started, just like DSU.

Of course, that hasn't stopped Fujitsu from delivering to DSU in three weeks. Superintendent Sittig in Baltic: call Fujitsu!

Mitt Romney, Ironist

More RNC doublespeak:

"For decades, the Washington sun has been rising in the east — Washington has been looking to the eastern elites, to the editorial pages of the Times and the Post, and to the broadcasters from the coast. If America really wants change, it’s time to look for the sun in the west...."

—Mitt Romney, graduate of Harvard Law and Harvard Business, former Governor of Massachusetts, address to Republican National Convention, 2008.09.03.

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Update 2008.09.05 14:37 CDT: Paul Krugman dittoes the above.

Just Words? Palin Leaves Special Ed Funding Flat

Update 11:35: I'm flat wrong! 62% looked like a remarkably large budget cut. Commenters are busy doing some factchecking (again, thank goodness for community journalism!) and point out that the apparent cut is really just a product of moving $5M of funding for one program, the Alaska Youth Challenge Academy (Alaska's boot camp), to a different line/page in the budget. In FY2008, Alaska's boot camp for kids got $8.2M; in 2009, $6.1M.

That's what I get for not reading the Alaska state budget.

Of course, funding for the other special ed programs—last night Palin was referring to kids like her son with Down Syndrome and other disabilities, not necessarily the juvenile boot-camp crowd—has remained about the same under Palin as under her predecessor. Change? Where? Perhaps Palin (and the commenters supporting her) can provide some policy evidence of her emotional appeal....

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Update 12:37: And for days of more fun research, review Bill Fleming's incomparable cataloguing of the disconnect between Palin's words and reality in the comment section of Dakota War College. Amazing, Bill.

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Update 22:00: P.S. to Arri at Comcast: I'm not a Comcast customer, so I can't post on your forum, but my name is Cory Allen Heidelberger (which you can find if you click my résumé and profile in the right sidebar), and I approved the above correction. As far as I know, DailyKos's original story is based on a misreading of the official budget documents... but then I've been wrong before.

----original incorrect post----

Like shooting fish—or moose?—in a barrel...

"To the families of special-needs children all across this country, I have a message: For years, you sought to make America a more welcoming place for your sons and daughters. I pledge to you that if we are elected, you will have a friend and advocate in the White House."

—Gov. Sarah Palin, remarks to the Republican National Convention, 2008.09.03.

Hat tip to Mr. Schwartz: Governor Palin has overseen a 62% reduction in the Alaska budget for schools for special needs kids. The state gave special schools $8 million annually before she took office, $3.2 million after.

Money or mouth—which do you believe?

Voting Your Pocketbook? History Says Vote Democrat

Surely this talk of history makes me a Marxist... ;-)

When gasoline costs four dollars a gallon, it makes it tough if you're a single mom to get to your job each day in the used car you drive. You want something to change. If you're a flight attendant or baggage handler and you're asked to take a pay cut to keep your job, you want something to change. If you're a young couple losing your house, your credit rating, and your American dream, you want something to change.

—Mike Huckabee, address to Republican National Convention, 2008.09.03

O.K. Take Huck's implicit advice: vote your pocketbook. Historical economic analysis by Professor Larry Bartels of Princeton finds that over the last seven decades, all Americans, rich and poor, have enjoyed better income growth with Dems in the White House. Lower income families (like those Huckabee spoke of) see faster income growth than wealthy families under Democratic administrations, but everyone, even the rich folks the Dems supposedly tax to death, gets richer faster than they do under GOP presidents (see chart).

In research from 2004 [PDF alert!], Bartels finds this pattern holds for pre-tax and post-tax income. He also finds unemployment is generally lower and GDP growth generally higher under Dem presidents.

Little things like growing employment and GDP generally benefit the little guy more than the fat cats. What about the stock market? If the Dems are better for Main Street, the GOP must do better for Wall Street, right?

USA Today reporter Matt Krantz did a little almanac searching* in 2005 and found that over the 20^th century, under Republican presidents, the Dow increased 6.9% annually. Not bad! But under 20^th-century Democratic presidents, the Dow's annual increase was 13.3%.

Now these historical figures don't address the specifics of the economic plans of Obama or McCain. But then neither have this week's speeches at the Republican National Convention.

Huckabee, Giuliani, Romney et al. have been rolling in the old Republican rhetoric that used to persuade my wife and me... before we started looking at reality. The Republicans claim they know better how to produce economic growth, but history says that if you want to vote your pocketbook—or your stock portfolio—you'll vote Dem.

*2008.09.11: Oops! I realized I left this link out in the original post. My apologies!

South Dakota Ethanol Not Part of GOP Platform

"[John McCain] will lead us toward an America that will be independent of foreign oil by an all-of-the-above approach, including nuclear power and offshore drilling."

—Rudy Giuliani, remarks to the Republican National Convention, 2008.09.03

In more GOP doublespeak, "all" doesn't mean all. McCain and Palin embrace oil and natural gas from Canada (still a foreign country, kids), but the GOP doesn't want the renewable fuel South Dakota farmers can grow for them. The Republican Party has given unanimous approval to a platform that drives ethanol out of the core strategy for energy independence.

Well, not quite unanimous:

The 2008 Republican platform, approved at the party's convention in St. Paul, Minn., calls for ending the renewable fuel standard for ethanol, and Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., says that's a big mistake.

It's "proof that Republicans are not always right," Thune said Tuesday in an interview. "On this one, they just got it wrong."

"I'm disappointed in that," Thune said. "It came as a bit of a surprise" [Dennis Gale, "SD Senator: GOP Call to End Ethanol Mandate Wrong," AP via Forbes, 2008.09.02].

In the same article, Brian Jennings of the American Coalition for Ethanol argues that the ethanol mandate has helped reduce our dependence on foreign oil as "reduce gas prices, clean the environment,... and restore some prosperity to farm country" [Gale, 2008.09.02].

The platform mentions ethanol and biofuels twice: The first mention says the GOP wants to end the ethanol mandate and "let the free market work" [p. 30]. The second [p. 30] acknowledges we should continue to develop alternative fuels, "especially cellulosic ethanol," but couples that with a mention of "the burden of rising food prices," a gentle nod to the Big Oil propaganda campaign to keep ethanol out of our tanks.

Corn ethanol is here now, but the GOP doesn't want to use it. They want to focus on alternatives that are still a few years down the road so their Big Oil pals can maximize their oil profits here and now.

"All of the above"—in GOP-speak, that means everybody but South Dakota farmers. Thanks for nothing, Republicans.

Correction! Palin Simply Welcomes Alaska Secessionists, Never Joined

Correction! Alaskan Independence Party chairwoman Lynette Clark tells the New York Times someone was feeding her "erroneous information" when he/she told her Sarah Palin had been a member of the AIP from 1994 to 1996.

So Governor Palin isn't a secessionist; she just likes having them around town.

GOP Talking Heads on McCain-Palin: "It's Not Gonna Work. It's Over"

Think liberals are panicking? Here are prominent Republicans Mike Murphy and Peggy Noonan talking off air with MSNBC's Chuck Todd about the McCain-Palin debacle (courtesy an eager reader):

Murphy: "It's not gonna work."
Noonan: "It's over."

Todd: "...Kay Bailey Hutchinson... she's never been comfortable about this...
Murphy: "...they're all bummed out...."

Noonan: "The most qualified? No!"

Murphy: "The greatness of McCain is no cycnicism... this is cynical--"
Todd: "--and as you called it, gimmicky."

Eagleton... Eagleton....