Evergreen Freedom Foundation and the Union Lobbying Records
April 24, 2008
The Evergreen Freedom Foundation is cranking out some superb content on their blog, Liberty Live. The post we find relevant for today is the heads up on the Lobbying Disclosure Act Database. Here is what the Evergreen Freedom Foundation has to say about it. Here are a few highlights we found when we searched the 2008 first [...]The Union Label Blog now runs on Wordpress 2.5
April 24, 2008
Good news Union Label readers! The Union Label Blog has undergone some “under the hood” maintenance and should now be running much better. We’ve stripped out a lot of code that was allowing spam, we’ve removed old and useless links from the sidebar, and we’ve added some link love and subscription options to the comment [...]Evergreen Freedom Foundation
April 23, 2008
I’ve been meaning to write another freedom movement blog plug post, but because I’ve been traveling for a week I haven’t had time to get around to it. (...)Blog Spotlight: Evergreen Freedom Foundation
April 23, 2008
If you happen to live in Washington you’re in luck. Not only do you have a kickin think tank in the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, but they have a really sharp blog called LibertyLive.Talk about firepower!
April 16, 2008
Welcome to the .577 T-Rex Rifle. Of course, most of these guys are using terrible form, but it still shows the raw power of such a firearm. This video shows the proper way to fire a 577.David Brock handed $40 million to attack John McCain
April 15, 2008
David Brock is certainly no stranger to the left wing money machine. He is, after all, the founder of George Soros funded Media Matters of America, an organization with a sole intention on attacking anything that doesn’t align politically.
And the attacks will come hot and heavy now that Brock has taken on the lead role at “Progressive Media USA”. According to Politico, PMUSA is gearing up to launch a four month, $40 MILLION DOLLAR campaign centered around a plan to attack John McCain.
Wealthy Democrats are preparing a four-month, $40 million media campaign centered on attacks on Sen. John McCain. And it will be led by David Brock, the former investigative reporter who first gained fame in the 1990s as a right-wing, anti-Clinton journalist.
The planned campaign is the product of a shakeup in the top ranks of the struggling independent Democratic groups. Brock, now best known as the ex-conservative founder of the liberal group Media Matters, last month quietly assumed the chairmanship of what’s expected to be the main vehicle for independent Democratic attacks on McCain, now called Progressive Media USA.
Brock recently met with George Soros and others of his ilk to lay out the attack strategy. Apparently, Soros liked what he saw and gave the project his blessing.
Keep your eyes on this one, folks. It’s going to get dirty.
$600,000 to provide a comfortable swimming environment
April 14, 2008
This story is a little more local than most of our pork reports, but it still warrants a heads up.
Maggie Thurber has discovered an amazing abuse of tax dollars in the City of Toledo. Apparently,Toledo is gearing up to spend a whopping $600,000 to open several pool locations.
As Maggie points out, the City is taking the nanny state approach by deciding the costs are not relevant when it comes to providing comfort for citizens.
Kattie Bond, director of Toledo’s department of neighborhoods, said the benefit of operating city pools outweighs the cost.
“It is important to provide recreational opportunities for citizens,” Ms. Bond said. “We live in a city where we do get hot weather, so it’s important we provide a place for kids to at least get wet and cool off.”
Maggie also tosses in some pretty convincing numbers that lead to the conclusion this $600,000 project will only serve less than 2% of the population.
Last year, the pools served 25,151 entrants. The city did not keep track of how many of those ‘entrants’ were the same individual. They also charged $1 for entry.
In 2007, there were six pools open (one was a splash pad) compared to the 12 facilities opened in 2006. Despite the increased attendance at two of the pools, overall attendance at the six facilities declined 18.5% from 30,841 to 25,151. This clearly indicates that individuals who had access to a pool in 2006 did not travel to other locations in 2007 in order to “get wet and cool off.” (I just can’t imagine how they survived!)
As these numbers are visits and not visitors, it’s hard to estimate just how important this cost is to the general public. For sake of argument, let’s estimate that individuals likely to use the pool facilities will do so five times during the season. This seems a reasonable estimate considering the number of days the pools are open.
Using this assumption, the pools had about 5,000 unique visitors. The 2006 Census data shows that there are 74,896 children (under 18 years of age) in Toledo. Even if every visitor to the pools was a child, we would be serving less than 7% of the kids in the city. If we consider total population, those estimated 5,000 unique visitors represent less than 2% of the population.
Lovely, isn’t it?
$600,000 to provide a comfortable swimming environment
April 14, 2008
This story is a little more local than most of our pork reports, but it still warrants a heads up.
Maggie Thurber has discovered an amazing abuse of tax dollars in the City of Toledo. Apparently,Toledo is gearing up to spend a whopping $600,000 to open several pool locations.
As Maggie points out, the City is taking the nanny state approach by deciding the costs are not relevant when it comes to providing comfort for citizens.
Kattie Bond, director of Toledo’s department of neighborhoods, said the benefit of operating city pools outweighs the cost.
“It is important to provide recreational opportunities for citizens,” Ms. Bond said. “We live in a city where we do get hot weather, so it’s important we provide a place for kids to at least get wet and cool off.”
Maggie also tosses in some pretty convincing numbers that lead to the conclusion this $600,000 project will only serve less than 2% of the population.
Last year, the pools served 25,151 entrants. The city did not keep track of how many of those ‘entrants’ were the same individual. They also charged $1 for entry.
In 2007, there were six pools open (one was a splash pad) compared to the 12 facilities opened in 2006. Despite the increased attendance at two of the pools, overall attendance at the six facilities declined 18.5% from 30,841 to 25,151. This clearly indicates that individuals who had access to a pool in 2006 did not travel to other locations in 2007 in order to “get wet and cool off.” (I just can’t imagine how they survived!)
As these numbers are visits and not visitors, it’s hard to estimate just how important this cost is to the general public. For sake of argument, let’s estimate that individuals likely to use the pool facilities will do so five times during the season. This seems a reasonable estimate considering the number of days the pools are open.
Using this assumption, the pools had about 5,000 unique visitors. The 2006 Census data shows that there are 74,896 children (under 18 years of age) in Toledo. Even if every visitor to the pools was a child, we would be serving less than 7% of the kids in the city. If we consider total population, those estimated 5,000 unique visitors represent less than 2% of the population.
Lovely, isn’t it?
Improve your traffic in half an hour
April 13, 2008
Problogger has a great post with 10 steps to improving traffic.Washington Waste of the Day (Pork Edition)
April 10, 2008
Finding a politician who will make solid efforts to expose pork is hard work these days, but every once in a while we find ourselves surprised. In this case, it’s the Washington Waste of the Day blog set up by Senator Tom Coburn.
We’ll be adding this great pork report to our sidebar today, and we highly recommend you bookmark the blog and watch for updates.
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Exposing It
