Friday, July 22, 2011

Minnesota Minutes

I'll pick up where I left off, and apologize for being gone so long. I am struggling to even sit and read a Globe anymore, and the unread pile has begun to grow again. 

I'm simply not enthusiastic about getting divisive, distorted, and diversionary news items along with endless war propaganda and lies. I'm sick of the elite insults embedded in their journalism, as well as the enduring obfuscations and omissions I have spent over five years documenting.  

Oh, did I mention the agenda-pushing, state-supporting slant they give you (unless it covers cops, teachers, and firefighters robbing you blind).

"Minnesota shutdown ends with signing of $35.7b budget" July 21, 2011|By Monica Davey, New York Times

After a legislative session that dragged on late into the night, Governor Mark Dayton of Minnesota signed new spending plans for the state yesterday, ending the longest and broadest shutdown in state history.

Since July 1, the state’s parks had been barricaded, highway rest stops blocked off, and the Capitol closed.  

I never go there, I never use them, and good.

Some 22,000 state workers had been sent home, the state lottery was suspended, and licenses were unavailable, even those for fishing during Minnesota’s treasured warm season.

Hey, GO FISHING ANYWAY! The RANGER is OUT OF WORK, right? 

Besides, even if he shows up just say I TRIED TO BUY a LICENSE but YOU GUYS AIN'T SELLING THEM! 

I'd even take my chances in front of a jury!

Restarting the state’s operations now will be no small task, state officials said, calling for patience - more patience - from Minnesotans.

 Don't you understand that we are ALL OUT of THAT?! 

We have been PATIENT for YEARS NOW and NOTHING! 

If anything, the SITUATION has WORSENED -- as designed!

Road construction projects, about 100 of which were halted, need to be cleaned up for work to begin again. State offices, including licensing services, are weeks behind on mail, applications, and requests, and it may be weeks more before things are back to normal....

And how did they "solve" the "crisis?"

Leaders agreed to spend $35.7 billion over the next two years, which was more than Republicans had hoped, by using borrowing maneuvers to come up with the last $1.4 billion. The state will delay payments to local school districts and borrow money against expected payments from the tobacco industry....   

Oh, the SAME OLD "SOLUTIONS" that have GOTTEN US INTO THIS ANGRY MESS!!

Still, the prospect of reopening Minnesota was cheered by many.  

When the newspaper uses words like still and but it means it's a pile of bs. I've read them long enough to recognize the smell.

Still uncertain was the cost of the 20-day shutdown; many of those who would normally tally such costs were laid off.
 
Whatever it was, the taxpayers saved money.

Some in the state, too, were considering a less tangible cost: How would memories of the shutdown - with people turned away at state parks and politicians going days without talking to one another - affect the state’s image of lovely lakes and relatively efficient government?

Imagine how I feel living in Massachusetts. This Democrat-controlled state just shredded collective bargaining and unions called it a win.

Massachusetts has this reputation as some way-out liberal, antiwar enclave when it is nothing of the sort. The place is loaded with military and other agenda-pushing corporations, and the politicians are in the thrall of corporate cash here. It's where our tax money goes, something I've repeated time and again.  

Oh, right, we are trailblazers on the gay marriage which provides us with the image.

--more--"  

Related: Dayton Deserts Democrats

New business:

"Minn. school district sued over gay policy" by Associated press, Boston Globe

CHAMPLIN, Minn. - Several current and former students sued Minnesota’s largest school district yesterday, saying its policy requiring staff to remain neutral when sexual orientation is discussed in the classroom prevents teachers from effectively protecting youths perceived as gay from bullying and harassment.

I hate to say I told you so, but I told you $o.

The five plaintiffs contend the Anoka-Hennepin School District failed to protect them from severe bullying and harassment. Three of the plaintiffs identify themselves as gay or bisexual and two do not.

“This policy sends the message to kids that who they are is not OK,’’ said Mary Bauer, legal director of the Southern Poverty Law Center, one of two advocacy groups that filed the lawsuit in federal court in Minnesota.  

Why am I not surprised?  

Despite the nice-sounding name they are a tool of division. 

And what do you mean government is behind the racist, white supremacist movement (as they advance the supremacist Zionist agenda)?

The students are asking the court to block the policy, order effective protections including better training, and award them unspecified damages.

“For the last three years kids have been calling me names and shoving me into lockers, desks, and walls, just because they say I am different,’’ plaintiff Kyle Rooker, 14, told reporters.

The policy came under criticism after six students in the district committed suicide in less than two years. The district says its investigation found no evidence that bullying contributed to the deaths, but it changed its antibullying policies last October. 

That's AmeriKa all over: responding to problems that don't exist with the wrong solution.  

Were the kids on psychotropic drugs?

--more--"   

What gets me about the bullying in AmeriKa is that the nation itself is the biggest bully on the planet, a mass-murderer of millions that continues to threaten people (usually at the behest of a much smaller but more influential nation located in the Middle East).

Meeting adjourned!