April 2008 – Page 4

Shorebird of the Week – April 10, 2008

This smiling face of my Shorebird of the Week came out of last Saturday's pregame. Hopefully I'll have action shots next week.

Since my plans for photography last Sunday were dashed because of the rainout, a still shot of this week’s Shorebird of the Week will have to do. As has been the case for most of the three years I’ve watched Delmarva play, the catching starts are split by at least two guys and this year’s been no exception. Brendan Monaghan is one of those two and gets the nod for this week’s SotW honors.

Brendan’s off to a bit of a slow start but with just three games played he could have a 4-for-4 night tonight and suddenly look like a batting champion. Thus far he’s 2-for-12 with an RBI and a stolen base in these three games. New manager Ramon Sambo would certainly take stats comparable to what the New Jersey native put up last year with Bluefield, where Brendan hit .277 in 49 games (46-for-166) and knocked in 38 runs – over a full 450 at-bat season that would work out to over 100 RBI. Monaghan also ripped 15 extra-base hits in that short season and drew 21 walks, translating to a healthy .802 OPS (on-base percentage + slugging percentage) overall. Even as a part-time player this year, reproducing those numbers over the full 2008 campaign would put him among the team leaders.

And if you happen to see him at Friday night’s game, wish Brendan a happy birthday – he’ll turn 23 on April 11th.

Shorebird stuff for the weekend

While I may not be able to pull this off every Thursday, I really like being able to make this a full-day theme since my Shorebird of the Week post will come up at 7:00 tonight. There were a couple of notes I wanted to bring up about this upcoming weekend’s games that I thought were important. (This doesn’t count the beanie giveaway for Friday night’s game.)

This weekend will be “Autism Awareness Weekend” at Perdue Stadium and as part of this there will be a hat auction during Saturday night’s game. If it is similar to one I participated in last season, each Shorebirds player will have a special commemorative cap for the evening and at the conclusion of the contest will sign their game-worn cap and award it to the highest bidder. (Last year I purchased former field coach Kimera Bartee’s cap – gotta show some love for those Detroit Tiger alumni.) Most likely the minimum bid will be $25 or so but that’s not a bad donation to the cause at all so I may pick up another one. And something tells me that there just might be a cap signed by former Oriole standout Tippy Martinez, who will also make an appearance at the game as a guest.

Plus Saturday will be a fireworks night and, like last Saturday, be a reward night for young readers from outlying counties. So lots of kids will be about.

If you’re like me and just love to watch baseball without as many frills, there’s games Friday night, Sunday afternoon (hopefully with better weather than last Sunday’s fiasco), Monday night, and a twi-night doubleheader to wrap up the homestand Tuesday night beginning at 6:05 p.m. That’s to make up for last Sunday. Lakewood is in town over the weekend then we’ll have Hagerstown here again Monday and Tuesday. (After the seven early-season games with the Washington Nationals affiliate, we next see the Suns in mid-June to begin the second half then we’ll be finished with hosting them for the season.)

Hopefully I will see you at the ballyard this weekend.

If you were real quick last night you’d have seen the preview of this. I forgot to reset the timestamp before I hit “Publish” so it was up for about 30 seconds. I guess it’s one of the pitfalls of pre-blogging but I like to space my posts out timewise.

Reax to the late departed session

Two pieces of opinion tonight from other folks then one from me. How does that sound?

Let’s begin with the Republicans in our House of Delegates, thanks to Carrie Simons-Sparrow:

As the 2008 General Assembly Session comes to a close, House Republicans review the events of the last 90 days.

“The 2008 Legislative Session has been another disappointing example of Governor O’Malley’s failure to provide responsible fiscal leadership”, said Minority Leader Anthony O’Donnell. “Government continues to grow virtually unchecked and the appetite for taxes has not been satisfied. The Democrat Leadership is trying to pull the wool over the eyes of the taxpayers with empty rhetoric about spending cuts and sound fiscal management. For virtually every cut that has been made, the Governor has found somewhere else to spend those dollars. For every job that has been cut, additional positions have been added. Their fiscal restraint is an illusion. This budget is contingent on the largest tax increase in Maryland’s history and there has been no true effort from the leadership to reduce spending.”

(snip)

“For all of their lofty rhetoric and election year promises, the Governor and Democrat Leadership have done little to address Maryland’s energy issues”, said Minority Whip Christopher Shank. “In 2006, they promised rate relief and a solution to our looming energy shortage. While they’re busy patting themselves on the back over the BGE settlement, they have codified an 85% electric rate increase and passed feel-good energy policies that will serve to further increase rates. All I see here for the ratepayers are broken promises.”

Of course, the main office of the Maryland GOP had their reaction too, in a release called “O’Malley’s Budget – The Spending Spree Continues”:

In the final days of the regular Session, the General Assembly passed a $31.2 billion budget, which represents more than 4% in new spending over the previous year’s budget. The Senate voted 38-7 and the House of Delegates voted 109-31 in favor of the budget.

Dr. Jim Pelura, Chairman of the Maryland Republican Party, released the following statement:

“This 2008 Legislative Session represents a continuation of the assault on the citizens of Maryland by Martin O’Malley and his supporters in the General Assembly. We must not forget that this budget has, as its foundation, the massive tax increases of the Special Session from November 2007. Marylanders from all walks of life are feeling the harmful effects of these taxes and, with the passage of this budget, will continue to be repressed by them.

“Our economy cannot withstand this assault. Jobs will be lost, businesses will relocate, and dollars to the Maryland treasury will dwindle. To think that the Maryland government can tax itself into prosperity is foolhardy and delusional.

“This Session not only resulted in a greater government grab of the hard-earned money of Marylanders, but also brought a significant increase in the size of the Maryland State bureaucracy. It is just as true today as it was during the Special Session: Maryland government does not have a revenue problem; it has a spending problem.

“The Maryland Republican Party believes in and will continue to promote the idea that low taxes, smaller government, and a robust private sector will ultimately result in more jobs and greater prosperity and freedoms for all our citizens.”

While to me this year’s entire General Assembly session was a downer, there were a couple bright spots over the last day or so because the job-killing and so-called Global Warming Solutions Act was killed along with the implementation of speed cameras in highway work zones statewide. (By the way, I have nothing but respect for highway workers so we should make an effort to follow the posted speed limits when they’re working. I just object to the Big Brother aspect of speed cameras and the fact they’re solely for revenue enhancement, not safety.)

The one problem we on the right side have is that memories are pretty short and by 2010 most of the more asinine items will simply become standard operating procedure like we’d always had them. People do not think about how things were before a lot of restrictions and fees were placed on them, instead believing the hollow promises and class warfare practiced mainly by the majority party. That tactic seems to work well in Maryland’s three largest municipalities. I don’t forget these things but it’s a sad statement of our times that many who are affected most shrug off these sorts of things off and don’t make any effort to change them. If they did, in 2010 the GOP would at least double its numbers in the General Assembly and Marylanders would throw Martin O’Malley out on his ear because he’s sure not doing the job that either he promised or the people support (as evidenced by his mid-30’s approval rating compared to Governor Ehrlich’s mid-50’s approval number when he lost re-election.)

So I break things down a little bit. If I can convince one reader a day that my viewpoint is correct, I’m doing at least some of my job. The next part is to make that reader active and convince one other person him- or herself the next day, even if it’s simply to get them to read my viewpoint. If I can do that for each of the next 936 days or so until the November 2010 election here in Maryland we may surprise some folks.

I plan on doing my part, how about you?

Oh, and one other thought: it would be helpful if our party’s flock in the General Assembly stuck together on some of the major issues. Having half your Senate delegation vote for the O’Malley budget doesn’t send much of a message does it? Nor does putting togther an alternate budget that conceded the O’Malley tax increases.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Who’s doing the savings?

Today I come not to bury Caesar but to praise him. Joe Albero at Salisbury News had an interesting post about a local car wash that utilizes a number of solar panels in order to increase its energy efficiency; in this post the owner of the car wash responded to previous comments with a comment of his own.

As car wash owner Bruce Dayton claims:

I have a solar water heating system to aid in wash water heating that will pay back in less than three years, including the $2k rebate from the state.

The solar electric system is 6.3kW. This system will pay back in 10-12 years, maybe sooner if electric rates keep going up…..oops, I mean as electric rates continue to go up. The rebate from the state is $5k.

Some commentors to this post brought up the point that the payback includes tax rebates, which come from the money all the rest of us provide – and that is a valid point. I actually touched on this aspect before in a post regarding a bill in this year’s General Assembly. (By the way, an amended HB377 did pass the Senate 42-5 so my reader’s fears were at least somewhat unfounded.)

But where Joe gets it wrong is arguing that because solar panels work for Dayton’s business, they should’ve been placed on the recently-built city fire station. Truly this is an apples and oranges comparison.

With a car wash you have a building that is suited pretty well for this sort of application, because the majority of customers use the facility in the summer, a time when solar energy is plentiful because the sun’s out longer and higher in the sky. Moreover, the building isn’t occupied full-time and since there’s a portapotty in the picture I’ll deduce the car wash has no restroom facilities either. Most of the energy use is in heating water and running the washing equipment, there’s no real large need for any HVAC items.

On the other hand, a fire station is much more energy-intensive per square foot and is almost constantly occupied whether by the public or by firefighters year-round. It would be difficult for solar panels to help a whole lot on a bleak, cold January day – or imagine a string of days like we’ve had of late where the weather’s been cool and gloomy. Unfortunately, the time of most need in this case would be the time where solar panels are least effective. It would slow the payback time to a crawl and because these are OUR tax dollars we’re talking about the length of payback is extremely important.

Solar panels have their uses but I have to disagree with Joe when he says that a fire station is one of them. Besides, if solar panels were really that great would the government need to juryrig the market so they are sold and used? I hope that the “rebate” (read: subsidy) Mr. Dayton’s getting is at least resulting in lower prices for his customers.

Taking NTU’s bait

Since a lady named Kristina Rasmussen was nice enough to share this with me, I’ll bite. Yesterday the National Taxpayers’ Union released their Congressional ratings for 2007. As an overview, Rasmussen noted:

The Rating provided clues to how Republicans, now in the minority, responded to their 2006 drubbing at the polls. House GOP Members seemed to have taken the election results as a referendum on their declining fiscal discipline, as the average pro-taxpayer score rose nine points to 69 percent. Senate Republicans, however, didn’t seem to get the same memo. Their average fell nine points to 66 percent in 2007. Democrats in both chambers saw drops in average scores: 16 percent to 6 percent in the House and 15 percent to 8 percent in the Senate.

Neither of these scores were surprising to me. On the House side, it’s likely many of the House Republicans who were defeated in 2006 were among the worst offenders on the NTU’s rating scale. One thing the Democrats ran on was ending what they termed the “culture of corruption” and being in favor of big spending was seen as corrupt. Having said that, a 69 percent overall rating is still far too low for my tastes – but it’s certainly better than the lowly 6 percent the Democrats maintained. Obviously Democrats promised reforms but once they became the majority party and took over control of pork spending, suddenly wasteful spending became much less of an issue for them. Imagine that.

Meanwhile, Republicans on the Senate side by and large have tended to be only slightly to the right of center so a drop in their overall ratings wasn’t a shock at all. Many GOP Senators are pretty prodigious porkers who are just as bad as Democrats when it comes to attempting to buy re-election through the proliferation of pork they pass for return to their home states. (It’s why I feel the Seventeeth Amendment should be repealed.)

In looking at the all-time House numbers, the 69 percent figure from 2007 is a high-water mark not seen since 1996, and second only to the post-Contract With America 83 percent figure that was achieved in 1995. (That was back when Republicans were serious about shrinking government, sadly those days and that opportunity have passed us by.) The Senate also peaked in 1995 at 86 percent.

Between our elected officials in both Maryland and across the Mason-Dixon Line in Delaware, here is how they rated:

Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R – MD 6th) – 76% (up from 63% in 2006)
Rep. Mike Castle (R – DE at-large) – 44% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R – MD 1st) – 26% (his all-time lowest percentage and 5th straight year of decline)
Sen. Tom Carper (D -DE) 10% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D – MD) – 6% (ranked 73rd of 100 Senators after being ranked 99th in 2005 and 2006)
Sen. Ben Cardin (D – MD) – 5% (his all-time lowest percentage, including time served in the House)
Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D – MD 8th) – 5% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Rep. Albert Wynn (D- MD 4th) – 5% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Sen. Joe Biden (D – DE) – 4% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D – MD 7th) – 4% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Rep. C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger (D – MD 2nd) – 4% (his all-time lowest percentage)
Rep. John Sarbanes (D – MD 3rd) – 4%
Rep. Steny Hoyer (D – MD 5th) – 3% (his all-time lowest percentage)

Notice a trend here? Once the Democrats became the majority, they started acting in the best interests of their special interests, none of whom apparently are taxpayers.

By the way, if you’re one of those folks who think a “moderate” Democrat like Frank Kratovil would be a centrist Congressman, bear in mind the story of Maryland’s 2nd District, which is now Democrat “Dutch” Ruppersberger’s area. In five years of NTU rankings, his average percentage is 14% and highest grade was 23 percent in 2003. The man he replaced (a guy you might have heard of), Bob Ehrlich, averaged 63% and never was lower than 55 percent. I’m predicting right now if Kratovil wins he’ll have no better than the paltry 26% Wayne Gilchrest put up this year and likely far worse. On the other hand, I’m confident Andy Harris would get at least a 70% NTU rating and 90% wouldn’t surprise me at all.

And the NTU also had this to say about our Presidential hopefuls:

Presidential candidates Sens. (Hillary) Clinton (D-NY) and Barack Obama (D-IL) saw significant decreases in their pro-taxpayer scores between 2006 and 2007: 17 percent to 3 percent and 16 percent to 5 percent, respectively. In 2007, however, scores for both Senators were based on less than three-fourths of the weighted total of votes cast. Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), was not issued a score this year because he voted on less than half of the weighted total of votes cast. In 2006, he earned a score of 88 percent.

That’s part of the choice you’ll have in November – who do you think will be a taxpayer’s friend and who will be our foe?

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Am I being stalked?

It’s sort of amazing that over the last week I’ve had four different articles on me over at Salisbury News, with three of them featuring pictures of me at various times over at Perdue Stadium. My friends at Off The Cuff noticed this too (at least the latest incident), and I think I’m now ahead of such Joe Albero enemies as Barrie Tilghman and Wayne Barrall for the month as far as pictures go – hell, I think I’m ahead of most firefighters since the recent fire shots didn’t mention firefighters by name. While I’m flattered to be in such august company and doubly flattered that these pro-Maryland bloggers have noticed this too, I’ll take a few moments and share the real story.

As of just a few days ago, I indeed became a season ticket holder because the company I work for opted not to renew their passes. Fortunately I was able to secure the exact same seat I sat in for the last two seasons when I used the tickets they generously provided for any employee who wanted them…usually I would forgo the fireworks games and such that my cohorts wanted to go to and take the regular old weekday games simply because I like watching baseball. Of course, now I can go to any game I wish and Sunday I actually arrived pretty close to when the gates opened at 1 p.m. Even though it was only 46 degrees out and misty I figured they’d play.

Now, I saw Joe arrive up at the press box level as I was leaving it because I’d walked upstairs to talk with someone – he didn’t see me because we were both heading the same direction and he arrived (or returned) just after the game had been called. I walked down to ask Chris Bitters and confirm a makeup date but he was busy helping with the tarp so I went by the previous answer I’d gotten from another involved employee. (I was told correctly, the makeup game is next Tuesday night beginning at 6:05. They’ll play two 7-inning contests.) And that’s when photofreak Joe struck, unbeknownst to me until I saw the post at noontime yesterday.

You know that Joe might be pretty smart, as somehow he talked somebody with the Shorebirds into giving him press box access. Not too shabby for a blog that is “opinionated only.” So he watches the games for free while I paid for the privilege. But I suppose as a member of the Shorebird Fan Club and pretty loyal patron (in 3+ seasons I’ve made it to about 80-90 games, increasing that number each year) I don’t mind helping out the team and encouraging it to remain here – do you know how many cities would kill to get a minor league baseball team like ours? Anyway, I don’t need a press pass to take my pictures and get the stat copies which help me when I do my Shorebird of the Week so I’ll not begrudge Joe that – if having a press pass makes him feel like a reporter more power to him.

More to the point, I think Joe is looking to corner the local blogging market. Over the last few months what used to be a big four is now a big three because Delmarva Dealings has combined operations with Salisbury News. So G.A. is no longer the target of Joe’s wrath and apparently he’s deemed Bill Duvall to not be a threat anymore, probably because he’s not a BlogNetNews member anyway. It just leaves him and I, and even though my focus is quite a bit different I may be the last threat to his local news blog monopoly. I’m sure he’s seething just a bit when he sees my website and all of my “self-hits” ahead of him in the rankings on some Sundays. I’ll just be content with my usual top 5’s and the occasional number one rank, seems fair to me. I sleep well at night about what I write, even if it is about local music or some other off-the-wall subject he doesn’t care for.

On the other hand, while there have always been a few bloggers out there who called out Joe for some of his more egregious items, their number has grown over the last few months as more and more take issue with his methods and half-truths. To the extent that they are on my side in this fight, I welcome them.

Assuming that Joe continues his coverage of the Shorebirds once the novelty of the new season wears off and other events take precedence in his gathering of news, he and I will be in the same place a lot because I’ll be at most of the games sitting in my usual spot. So I suppose I better dress reasonably and make sure my hair’s combed although typically I have a cap on anyway. But it would be nice that a couple or three times during the season Joe leaves the laptop at home and brings Jennifer and the grandson instead because something tells me the tyke would enjoy seeing Sherman and riding the merry-go-round and playing in the arcade and even watching a little bit of baseball too.

Quit playing reporter and photographer all the time and be a grandparent. Maybe you didn’t care for how I helped to raise my daughter, so show me a better way since someday I’ll be a grandparent too.

Multicultural mumbo-jumbo

With all of the major legislation being passed this evening and late into the night by the Maryland General Assembly, sometimes things of little import do not get noticed. The hat tip goes to blogger Hans Bader for noticing this little item that will soon become the law of the state.

As passed, each private institution of higher learning in Maryland will need to report to the state on their efforts to “promote and enhance cultural diversity” in their student body, while public institutions “shall…implement a plan for a program of cultural diversity” or steps to improve on one they already have adopted. Included in the mandate is “a process for reporting campus-based hate crimes.”

However, deleted from the bill requiring the report from private colleges was the paragraph requiring a determination of “whether the enhancement of cultural diversity has improved the retention and graduation rate of a culturally diverse student body.” We can only judge these things on intentions and not actual results. Isn’t the idea of an institution of higher learning that of actually teaching students the ability of critical thinking?

But what is cultural diversity anyway? In the language of SB438, this includes “racial or ethnic groups or individuals who that are or have been underrepresented in higher education.” So could that mean being a white male makes one culturally diverse? After all, males are now a minority on college campuses, and if you look at traditionally black schools like UMES or Coppin State, certainly those schools are less than ideally and proportionately populated insofar as racial background goes. It’s possible that the intent of the bill addresses this, but my guess is they’ll get a pass because of their tradition.

Unfortunately, what this bill does not address is diversity of thought, something completely lacking in most college classrooms. However, the bill did pass pretty handily which is a sad commentary on our General Assembly. It passed 41-6 in the State Senate (thank you to Andy Harris for voting no, wish I could say the same about my own State Senator) while the Senate’s version as amended passed 120-19 in the House of Delegates.

So every year, colleges all across Maryland will now have to spend time and money making sure they can stay in good graces with the diversity police rather than doing something radical like educating the students.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

A Monday irony

At the risk of incurring the wrath of a certain blogger for impersonating another blogger’s method, I found this article by Jeff Dobbs at the American Thinker blog quite funny and ironic. But I continue.

Dobbs makes a great point about the Democrat Party. And before you on that side piss and moan about my leaving off the “-ic”, bear in mind that it’s a distinct possibility that the majority of voters in the party’s primaries may not get the nominee for whom they voted. (And don’t even go there about the 2000 election since those rules were set centuries before the game.) Besides, we don’t live in a democracy, we live in a Constitutionally-mandated representative republic. In fact, it’s even more of a democracy than the Founders intended since the passage of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.

All I have to say is that I’m enjoying the bloodletting on that side because it gives John McCain plenty of ammo to fire at them during the general election campaign. Of course, that also depends on whether he has the cajones to do it, and I’m sort of afraid that he won’t. Pretty sad for a guy who gutted out a number of years in captivity.

But even if he doesn’t, something tells me that this will be among the dirtiest campaigns in memory because the Democrats are absolutely desperate to get back in the White House and redo the damage they created in the 1990’s. With the exception of John McCain not being an incumbent, this election reminds me a little bit of the 1992 election because there’s even a couple of people out there who could play Ross Perot if they desired. (Perot did get into the race a little earlier in the process, though, announcing in February of 1992.) In the end though you have a moderate Republican against a Clinton.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Sunday poll

I’m going to try something new and different this Sunday evening. Certainly other websites have polls for readers to participate in, but I don’t just want your “aye” or “nay” opinion on an issue, I want to know WHY you feel that way. Think of it as a brief and ungraded take-home exam with the caution that it’s one where you could feel the wrath of the professor if your answer isn’t well thought out and written. It’s something I’ll attempt for a few weeks just to see how responses go and if it goes well I’ll keep it as a regular Sunday feature, although maybe not every Sunday.

My first question is on a local issue but I’m going to word it more broadly in order to solicit responses from the much larger area that reads monoblogue regularly. As a background, here in Wicomico County where I live we are one of just a handful of Maryland counties where liquor sales are exclusively through stores owned and operated by the county. It’s similar to a statewide system that I grew up with in my native home state of Ohio so it’s apparent to me that many other areas of the country likely have similar methods to sell and distribute potent potables.

Recently a call has been made for the county to divest itself from the liquor business and the likely next step would be a non-binding referendum on the subject, which in turn would guide the Maryland General Assembly as to whether or not to pass the appropriate legislation to allow that divestiture to happen.

So the question before you is:

Do you believe that state or local governments should control and profit from the sales of liquor and other distilled spirits, whether through their own specific stores or other designated locations? Why or why not? For the purpose of this question, the term “profit” does not include the sales and other taxes included in the price by state or local mandate.

Feel free to leave your answer as a comment, or if you’re shy you can reply to the e-mail address above under the subject line “Liquor poll.” If you do leave a comment, just bear in mind I only moderate them when I’m home so you may not see it for the better part of the day.

Next week I’ll give you the results and how I would answer the question.

Sine die at last

Tomorrow evening at midnight the end of 90 days of peril to our basic freedoms comes to an end. There was a possibility that the session could have been extended for another ten days but the state budget passed yesterday, leaving no reason to prolong the agony.

While the radical environmentalists will certainly whine about some of the items on their wish list being watered down, the end result is that their allies in the General Assembly made quite a bit of progress in their direction. It would be like winning a ballgame 4-3 instead of 13-3 – the statistics aren’t fattened up as much but a win is a win and they received quite a few in the session.

Meanwhile, those of us who favor a leaner, more efficient government continue on a multi-year losing streak thanks to those who inhabit the side across the aisle – you know, those who like to buy votes by promising just enough goodies for the electorate to feel like they’re getting something but not enough to actually help them succeed in life. Unfortunately, our side can’t seem to gain any ground.

One example is having the so-called “tech tax” repealed. Is it a victory? For those in the IT business of course it is. However, this victory is solely Pyrrhic for a number of reasons, three of which I opine here:

In return for the tech tax being repealed, the General Assembly continues to believe that budgeting is a zero-sum game. In order to “make up” for that “lost” revenue, they increased income tax rates for those Marylanders who are successful enough to be in the upper income brackets – including, I’m sure, a number of those IT businessmen who now avoid the dreaded sales tax on their services.
The tech tax was simply proposed as an extension of the sales tax to a new service. There are a number of other services that may not have the lobbying firepower or have gained favor with a powerful member of the General Assembly that may end up in the crosshairs when the next budget crisis hits, probably as soon as FY2010. While this particular door was slammed shut, we know that at least one bill was aimed at enhancing that sales tax revenue source by adding other services.
Finally, while the GOP fought this battle as best they could, they made a tactical error in my judgment when they proposed an alternate budget which still included all of the other tax increases that came into effect at the beginning of the year. Nor could they even be a unanimous vote against the bloated state budget.

Worst of all, we will have to go through at the very least FY2011 before any relief is possible and the chances of it are dubious at best with the stranglehold Democrats have on three regions that together control 66 seats in the House of Delegates and 22 Senate seats. It would take the convincing of voters outside Baltimore City, PG County, and Montgomery County that they have to touch the screen next to the Republican to have any sort of fiscal sanity in this state to have any hope beyond that.

Until then, the rear guard action needs to be united and in the face of the majority. I have no tolerance for the sheer ignorance that passes for legislation in our General Assembly and you shouldn’t either.

Crossposted on Red Maryland.

Weekend of local rock volume 12

This will be what you’d call a long post alert. Over last weekend I saw 17 bands in 11 hours of playing time, plus a few extra shots of stuff I found interesting. In order to compress things a little bit I’m going to use the captioning for the text bits and try to space these close together.

I’ll begin with the 12 bands I saw last Saturday night at Skip Dixxon’s Spring Luau.

Blake Haley started things off and as you'll see later finished them too. The guy on keyboards goes by the moniker Chuck D.

Adding a sense of humor to their acoustic versions of classic rock songs, Crowded Outhouse is a local favorite and came over straight from an earlier gig.

Woodstock isn't a group but a person, because that's the nickname he goes by. He did double duty in running the sound board as well. Anyone for bacon, eggs, and Jager?

Johnny Suit plays the guitar but I think one of his Nice Ties was at the cleaners. Otherwise wouldn't it be just Johnny Suit and the Nice Tie? They were the last of the four initial acoustic acts.

The show was plugged in once Melodic Groove was set up. The trio played a set that crossed the line between rock and blues.

Along the same lines as Melodic Groove, the talented Aaron Howell and his band showed their stuff to the gathering audience. By this time the diners were pretty much gone and the partiers were arriving.

Things started to rock a little harder with Trailerpark Romeo. In fact, they managed to blow a breaker someplace, which delayed things briefly.

You knew if Semiblind would be at this so would I. And how did they know I liked Tool's 'Sober'? At that point I wasn't strictly in that state but no worse than having cough syrup. By the way, the pic's in my personal collection but Alan the drummer had a grass skirt on. That's getting into the spirit!

If you like classic heavy rock like Led Zeppelin, you'd love Lower Class Citizens. They grow on me each time I see them. They also knocked out that breaker but kept playing until it was fixed, sort of like the long solo you'd get when the rest of the band gets their drink.

Next up was Matthew King and his band, who lightened things up just a notch. They were more toward the usual melodic rock that makes the girls dance.

Speaking of girls, that provides a nice segue to Agent 99. These three ladies and two guys tore through a half-dozen classic rockers. They get the gratuitous shots you'll see next.

While I'm not sure which came first, local radio personality Skip Dixxon returned to the drums to play with Agent 99. He also deserves a lot of thanks for putting this show together and lending his name to it. While some wear shirts that say 'Support Your Local Music' Skip really does his share.

I still dig that bottle-green 5-string bass. Casey carrying it is certainly a nice bonus for the eyes too. By the way I did get a gratuitous Kathy shot - she's the other guitarist - but it won't come out on this post and frankly I'm annoyed about it.

Blake Haley and Chuck D returned with their full band, Pirate Radio, to close out the show. They have a few different members and changed the sound a bit on songs I was familiar with from before. I think I liked the change, we'll see where they go with it.

So I rolled home after seeing all 12 bands and made it about quarter to three. About 14 hours later I was off to see more live local music, this time as part of the Salisbury Skatepark fundraiser. There were only 5 bands this time, with the locale being the Wicomico Youth and Civic Center’s Danang Room.

First on tap was a group called Death by Sunday. It's cool that these younger bands occasionally get a venue to work on their stage presence and such, and that's what these guys did.

One thing about this show was that there was a second stage. While the main stage bands were setting up, these guys who dubbed themselves the Sideshow Bobs would play a song or two. Indeed they were the sideshow. There were also giveaways of skater-related merchandise between acts.

Face the Sunshine was probably the heaviest of the four bands. The singer was really getting the crowd into it and soon you had what's in the next picture.

The mosh pit broke out once Face the Sunshine came out, as their singer wanted people to leave a circle for it. The security staff at the Civic Center weren't too overjoyed at the idea though so this scene didn't last too long.

While a lot of people were there to see headliners Amen the Animal I actually liked Buried in Vegas a little better. They have an EP they're releasing later this month.

You can tell the more veteran bands from the rookies because the more established ones come prepared with stuff to sell.

Here was the band everyone came to see, Amen the Animal. They played a pretty good set and there were a few in the crowd right up front who were helping on some of the lyrics. In terms of putting on a show, these guys obviously earned the status of headliners.

Somehow, my ears aren’t still ringing after all that but boy was I tired and sore from a lot of standing. It’s not every weekend I can get a treat like this though so it might be a couple weeks before I have volume number 13. It actually depends where I decide to go for the 4-20 parties as to who you’ll see next in the series.

Taxes, taxes, and more taxes

That was the title of a news release recently from the Maryland Republican Party, a release that detailed the 37 different tax increases proposed from a total of 33 bills (including crossfilings) introduced in this year’s General Assembly session. While most of these bills are introduced, get a hearing, then disappear, the sheer fact that so many ideas for revenue enhancement were placed in the hopper just months after a special session that raised billions in new taxes came to a conclusion tells me that there are a lot of people in the majority party of our General Assembly that won’t be satisfied until they’ve squeezed every last drop of revenue from those of us who actually work in order to redistribute wealth to those who can’t or won’t.

When the state’s budget also increases at a rate faster than inflation, what this tells me is that Democrats in Maryland are more than living up to their national reputation as a tax-and-spend party. Throw in a number of egregious attempts at curtailing our liberties such as increasing development buffer zones to 300 feet and it’s no wonder the state’s not growing in population as much as it could were it a more business-friendly one.

The one thing I do like about reports like the one the Maryland GOP compiled is that we on the side of conservatism can keep this in our memory division and hopefully remind voters the next time elections roll around just how much those in the Annapolis majority are reaching into our wallets and affecting our own back yards.

This also gives me the opportunity to tell my readers that over the next few weeks I’m going to take up the slack of the Maryland Accessibility Project to some extent and develop my own legislative scorecard based on the voting record for bills I’ve done with my Legislative Checkups, followed with other separate posts, or brought up by readers and, in this case, the Maryland Republican Party. It might take awhile to figure out 188 people and their voting records but I think it’s a worthwhile endeavor – besides I dig that sort of research for some crazy reason.

I’m hoping I can have this guide finished by the end of May or so, but it depends on a lot of other factors too – not the least of them my schedule otherwise. Today was a day I almost missed because of other activities I needed to get through, but I made it just in time.