Per a blogger’s request, here’s a dedicated thread on the recent motorcycle accidents in the area.
North Korea underscored its rogue nation status this week by test-firing a long-range missile, as well as several other Scud missiles, in defiance of strong U.S. and international warnings.
North Korean despot Kim Jong Il (in photo) seems to hope that the missile provocation will prompt the United States to agree to direct bilateral talks. But the administration wisely isn’t letting North Korea dictate the terms of the relationship and is working with the United Nations and countries such as China to respond to its actions.
There are no good options on North Korea: Perhaps the best course is to pursue patient diplomacy and work to contain this threat. The dictator’s shaky regime can’t last forever.
Posted by Randy Scholfield
Seeing all the bombs illegally bursting in air over Wichita Tuesday night — anything that shoots higher than 6 feet is unlawful in the city limits — I wondered if those visibly flouting local ordinances included any of the many folks who’ve raged recently against those who flout immigration laws. What part of “illegal” don’t they understand? Or does the meaning of “illegal” depend on the issue?
Posted by Rhonda Holman
An editorial in the Colby Free Press suggested that Gov. Kathleen Sebelius might have been trying to buy votes by giving state employees Monday off: “Can the July 3 day off be implied taxpayers are paying for a Sebelius campaign action?”
That seems harsh, but then so was the cost to taxpayers of the extra day off — $519,000, because Sebelius’ executive order provided for holiday pay for those employees who did work. Monday was a regular day for state employees in Missouri and Oklahoma. And it’s not as if Kansas’ employees are long overdue a salary increase: State employees got 1.5 percent raises last month.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
As he noted in a Washington Post commentary that the U.S. Supreme Court’s “review of Kansas’s death penalty statute seemed to stir more emotion than almost any other case the justices considered this term,” Theodore M. Shaw of the Legal Defense Fund took issue with Justice Antonin Scalia’s assertion in his concurring opinion that no one has been wrongly executed since capital punishment’s comeback. Shaw said that in four cases his group has investigated — of Texans Cameron Willingham, Ruben Cantu and Carlos DeLuna and of Larry Griffin of St. Louis — “it is now clear that the individuals executed almost certainly did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted.” Shaw concluded: “It’s time to recognize that, regardless of our views on the death penalty, any future debates must proceed with the knowledge that we have put innocent people to death.” Still, if Shaw is correct, you have to wonder why “the innocent’s name” has not been “shouted from the rooftops,” as Scalia suggested it would be.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Kansas City Star political correspondent Steve Kraske offered some interesting predictions for the political season. Among them:
– That GOP gubernatorial contender Robin Jennison (in photo), former Kansas House speaker from Healy, should not be underestimated. Kraske wrote: “There’s this thing about Kansas politics. Call it the 10 percent edge that Jennison and other westerners accrue just because the good folks out west vote in heavier numbers than anywhere else in the state. And for four years, Jennison was host of the ‘Kansas Outdoors’ radio program heard out west. He’s well known.”
– That Republican Phill Kline and Democratic challenger Paul Morrison each will spend three times the $550,000 Kline spent in 2002 to win the attorney general job.
– That Gov. Kathleen Sebelius will make a big show of embracing Morrison, a former Republican, “to show the world that she’s rebuilding the Democrats in a red state.”
Posted by Rhonda Holman
Former Education Secretary Rod Paige labeled the “65 percent solution” as “one of the worst ideas in education” in a commentary in The New York Times. That’s the conservative movement, pushed by Overstock.com founder Patrick Byrne, to mandate that 65 percent of school spending be spent in the classroom. Paige overstated Kansas’ embrace of the magic number; during last summer’s special session on school finance, the Legislature made 65 percent a target rather than a mandate. It makes sense for all districts to spend as much as possible on instruction rather than administration and other expenditures. But Paige predicted that rather than make schools better, such mandates would lead school officials to engage in creative accounting. Instead, Paige advocates “weighted student funding” — a needs-specific package of financing that would follow a child to the public school of his parents’ choice. “Liberals should like the extra investment in needy children; conservatives should appreciate its positive effects on deregulation and school choice,” he wrote.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
