Category: Personal stuff

Rants, raves, and general stuff about me that’s not related to politics or sports.

Social Security blowback

There’s a comment that I want to respond to but the point is too important to bury in my comments section. So I guess it’s back to politics for a bit.

“Myndful” has been a critic of my Social Security plan, which is fine. I wrote it off the cuff, almost as a conversation starter about a possible solution I see to the problems inherent in the program. But he (or she, I’m not sure) made this statement as part of the last comment:

“I tend to agree that social security as a retirement insurance program needs to be rethought. But going back to my comment about my age group (late 20’s) – how many people my age do you think have seriously thought about supporting themselves 40 years down the road?”

There’s two responses I have to this portion of the comment. Number one, by sunsetting the program over the amount of time I’m proposing it’s not like they’re not going to get fair warning. And how many young people already have an inkling that Social Security isn’t going to be around for them anyway? We hear on a regular basis that the program’s going to go into the tank in 2040 or whatever year they decide sounds scary but far-off enough to plug the latest “fix.” So this is my idea for a solution, and for most young people it’s just going to make what they’ve thought all along a self-fulfilling prophecy.

My other response is actually going to lead me into part of my next chapter in the 50 year plan, because I was planning on talking about fiscal responsibility – moreso on a governmental level but to some extent on the personal level.

Maybe I had a bit more of a head on my shoulders than most late 20’s types but I was already attempting to put money away for my retirement. Unfortunately, I also had a spouse who enjoyed having a lot of “stuff” and I could never put away a good sum of money until much later. (To be fair, we also bought a house in that time and used a chunk of my retirement money as a down payment.) Each time I tried I ended up having to withdraw the money I’d squirreled away. So I really didn’t get a good start on my retirement until about 8 years ago, in my mid 30’s.

But I look at the “bling” that kids in their 20’s spend their money on and it makes me shake my head. If they took 10% of what they spent on tricking up their little Hondas or buying games for their PlayStation and salted it away, they wouldn’t miss it but it would add up over time, not to mention keep their credit card payments at bay.

“Myndful” also noted:

“Making a sweeeping (sic) statement like ‘drop social security’ is all well and good, but what are you offering instead?”

My copy of the Constitution says not a thing about the federal government securing retirement. However, if a state wanted to get into that business, it’s up to them. An obvious example is where Alaska already distributes oil royalty payments to certain citizens – they could easily recast it as a retirement program and set up accounts for each resident. And we all know Maryland Democrats would have the attitude that you really don’t need the 12% that FICA takes out anyway and they’d likely try to vacuum it out of your wallet to set up a state program after the demise of the federal one is enacted. I’d fight that tooth and nail because I’m of the opinion we should try to take care of ourselves as much as we can, but Constitutionally it would be acceptable.

I have to give “Myndful” credit for making good comments that advance the post, as did the other people who gave their two cents. Really, I think I get the best comments of any of the blog sites around here, which I suppose means I have the best readers. So keep up the good work!

MBA news and notes

Hadn’t done this for awhile and it’s time for something a bit different than how the city is or isn’t spending tax dollars well and other political issues. Plus I get back to sports tomorrow as it will be Shorebird of the Week time again, and it’s getting time for another standings report on Friday. So I’ll clear out this backup.

First, I’d like to again thank my Eastern Shore blogging cohorts Karen, Joe, Oceanshaman, and John from ShoreThings (at least I think it’s John anyway) for contributing to Carnival of Maryland 7. It was fun and I’ll do it again, probably in the fall. We already have Nathan Vogel of TalkLab (one of several new members I’ve been remiss in welcoming) doing the honors for CofM8 next Sunday (June 3) and Aaron Brazell of Technosailor (which replaced an older blog of his, The Not-So-Free State) hosting CofM9 on Father’s Day. Even though the locale moves back west of the Chesapeake, I’d still like some Eastern Shore company on those carnivals.

And as I mentioned about TalkLab, we have several new members of the MBA. Creating a Jubilee County is everything you wanted to know about PG County, and more. In a similar vein, Inside Charm City discusses Baltimore-area issues.

Because the MBA has its roots in political blogging, it’s nice to get a new member who gets back to that. We’ve gotten to be wide-ranging while getting 30 members, but David at The Candid Truth doesn’t pull a lot of punches and is definitely worth reading.

The newest member is Stephanie, who writes Typing for Miles. I like her blog too, although I’m not familiar with many of the bands she writes about. (Then again, who’s heard of most of the bands I link to?) She’s a little more punk-centered while my tastes run to good old-fashioned hard rock. It’s gotta be a generational thing. And the name origin is interesting, so go check it out.

On the weekend I’ll get back to politics again unless some big news breaks. But enjoy some of my other fun stuff in the meantime.

Laun picked for Wicomico GOP post

Salisbury resident Bob Laun has been selected to fill a vacancy on the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee. While Bob is currently in the sales field, most would likely recall him as a sports director and anchor for WBOC-TV for almost a decade.

Laun bested a strong field of five other hopefuls for the position, most of whom appeared before the Wicomico Central Committee at their May meeting.

On a personal level, I thought Bob was the best choice because of his media experience, stances on issues I held dear, and the fact that he brings a fresher face to the Wicomico GOP as he was the youngest of the six applicants. Upon his swearing in at our upcoming June meeting, he will replace me as the youngest member of the Wicomico body.

Laun replaces Ed Heath, who resigned in April due to a pending move out of state.

In print no. 7

It’s obvious to me that someone at the Daily Times reads monoblogue because as soon as I noted that I’d sent a letter in, bam! it was in print the next day. Apparently I’ve gotten to the point where they don’t have to call me anymore to verify I wrote it.

They actually stayed fairly true to what I wrote in their print version, and I suppose it reads a little bit better. But here’s what I actually wrote in to them, just as a comparison.

Recently the local ‘pajamas media’ revealed a letter written by Barrie Tilghman regarding her ban on city employees participating on the “AM Salisbury” radio show hosted by Bill Reddish. This stemmed from his May 4th interview with City Council president Louise Smith, which culminated a long-standing feud between the mayor and Reddish.

As it turned out my name came up in the Smith interview as a source of comments Smith purportedly made in front of the Wicomico County Republican Central Committee on which I serve. I contacted Reddish later that day and informed him of the misstatement, for which he quickly apologized. However, the statement in question was uttered by Smith on other occasions, including a forum that I recounted for my website, monoblogue. Reddish’s sole error was placing Smith’s remark in the improper location when it was spoken.

I was satisfied with Reddish’s apology and I considered that portion of the matter closed. Further, Reddish made another apology for his lack of professionalism the next time he was on the air, May 7th. So it saddens me that Reddish has had a fatwa of sorts aimed at him by Barrie Tilghman and that Louise Smith has not distanced herself from it by accepting the apology Reddish provided.

I’m a regular listener to the “AM Salisbury” show and have been fortunate enough to be a guest on a few occasions. At no time in my dealings with Bill as a studio guest has he been less than professional. Slipping from his high standards on one occasion because his passion for the city got the better of him does not justify the calls for his job that have come from a few in and out of city government. Those who seek his dismissal are just as guilty of letting their emotions get in the way, and maybe they owe Bill Reddish an apology.

Reasonably close, except I paragraph differently. The point still remains that I consider the matter closed as far as my involvement is concerned and I think all of the affected should as well. If Louise Smith is this thin-skinned it’s going to be a struggle for four years.

On a sort of unrelated subject, I did get word about the Debbie Campbell press conference this afternoon (thanks Debbie!) but unfortunately I can’t attend midday stuff like that except on Fridays. At that time I was in the middle of designing flats for a project in OC, which is part of my paying job. But there is one part I’d like to get more info about, to wit:

Mrs. Campbell and Mrs. Cohen will unveil their cuts in spending and increases in revenue (emphasis mine) totaling approximately $3 million. These changes in the budget proposed by Mayor Barrie Tilghman will allow the salary increases for city firefighters, which the Mayor cut from her budget, to be reinstated.  Money would also be made available for the six paramedic positions, which have also been cut from the Mayor’s budget.

It’s a simple matter of priorities,” states Mrs. Campbell.  “What is more important to the health of our city – being able to retain our police officers or adding to the bureaucracy by creating an Assistant City Administrators position?  What is more important for the safety of our residents – being able to retain our firefighters or funding a bike path?”

I guess I’m a bit disappointed in my fellows, assuming one or more had an opportunity to attend the press conference…what are the cuts? The Daily Times has a sort of basic outline, but no more depth than a pie pan. And more importantly, where do the increases in revenue come from?

If Debbie and/or Terry would be so kind to provide me a list so that someone who actually doesn’t have a deadline or space constraints could take a look at it, I’d appreciate it! I’m sure some of my fellows in the local blogosphere would say the same thing.

Tomorrow I’m going to look at the newly-christened Andy Harris campaign. Cato (of Delmarva Dealings) sure seems to be in favor of it, and I did check out the website (you’ll notice it’s linked now.)

Weekend preview

A couple things:

Blogging will be light the next couple days; however, I did write a post that I’ll self-submit for Sunday’s Carnival of Maryland 7. At the moment I have 7 submissions, but I’d love to have at least 10 to 15. (Hint, hint to Cato, Karen, and Joe Albero – you’ve done some worthy stuff the last two weeks, submit it through the link I just put up.) The post I’ll submit will be the one that appears tomorrow.

I’m going to attend the state Republican Party convention, which I think will be pretty exciting. It’ll give me a chance to hopefully check in with all of the announced GOP Presidential candidates. No, they won’t be speaking but several will have their own hospitality suite hosted on their behalf and I can size up those folks in Maryland who are supporting the respective candidates. I’m positive that the John McCain campaign and Mitt Romney campaign will be represented since I’ve already been contacted by those two, and I’m sure many others will be present as well. Who knows, maybe a second-tier one will even put his face in the place. There’s also the intrigue of Andrew Harris seeing what type of support he’ll have for a possible run against Wayne Gilchrest, plus there’s other items which I’m not going to divulge at the moment but may be featured on monoblogue in the coming weeks.

So I’ll take my camera and notebook and see what’s exciting, just like I did last time. (Wow, that was 160 posts ago?) It’ll be in the same locale, the Doubletree in Annapolis so we’ll see how the camera does and how well I can read my notes and stuff afterward. That will likely be Monday’s post after I compile CofM7 on Sunday.

Also, continue with the great comments I’ve gotten lately, you folks are really making my posts even better with your input. First thing I do when I get back is moderate comments so be patient. I look forward to seeing plenty of comments to moderate and my site meter with decent numbers. That’s your heads up for the weekend, so I’ll have new stuff to keep you coming back!

Here’s what I think of Louise…

Since I was “called out” by Joe Albero (even though he keeps spelling my name wrong – no “ch” there pal!) I suppose I’ll answer the question.

Insofar as civility and running meetings goes, it sounds like she’s somewhat of an improvement over our last City Council president. But the more important side is financial and there she’s been a disappointment.

I’m a recovering pack rat, but I make an exception when it comes to saving stuff like campaign literature. And here is just a sampling of what she campaigned on, in the words of her own handout. This is what I take as her promise to the voters of Salisbury.

“I am Louise Smith. I an asking for your vote in my bid to win a Salisbury City Council Seat. I am running for office because I believe that Salisbury’s elected officials should be more responsive to citizens and more responsible with our tax dollars. During the past four years, our council had presided over the giveaway of millions of our tax dollars to subsidize developers, incurred fines for environmental violations from the Maryland Department of Environment, and has earned a reputation of favoring special interest groups over ordinary citizens.”

As far as being responsive to citizens, I’m curious to know if she (or any other city employees, or city-based politicians) have signed the petition for referendum regarding the city’s property tax hike. To me, that would certainly be responsive to the citizens in allowing them a say over their tax rates. It goes without saying that I’m not impressed with her being responsible with the city’s tax dollars. If the additional tax revenue is necessary, that should be the LAST resort and not the first as it appears to have been.

“The city is halfway through this fiscal year without last year’s audit being completed. Using my experience in audits and contract compliance, I will focus on the important role that a council member plays in passing the city’s budget and determining how tax dollars should be spent.”

Thus far I fail to see that she’s done her homework, or at least has done as much as her cohorts Debbie Campbell and Terry Cohen.

“I am equally concerned about public safety. The upsurge in violent crime has been described in the Daily Times. Non-competitive police salaries and high turn-over rates have been identified as core issues that must be addressed in order to deliver police services at the most efficient and effective level.”

I’ll grant her that she’s made it a priority to give the cops a raise, but she’s not spoken out insofar as I know about the firemen, who endorsed her but are not due a raise under the Tilghman budget. As Bill Reddish noted this morning, there’s five priority items that the city needs to take care of: police, fire, water/sewer, garbage, and streets. I think the problem with the budget is one of ‘well, let’s just take what we spent last year and add 5% to the numbers’ and it truly needs to be stripped to bare bones and rebuilt from scratch. Perhaps that way we won’t get $250,000 errors in the police budget.

“Do you have a sense that the city has lost touch with its citizens? I do. I ask for your vote so that I can work to create an atmosphere of accountability, responsiveness, and confidence that your elected officials are working for you.”

Now I will note that the people who have complained the loudest are obviously the ones who were most dissatisfied with the previous City Council. There are some out there who think Louise Smith is doing a good job under difficult circumstances and some who just plain don’t keep up with the issues anyway.

And I know Louise in passing, as she served prior to me on the Central Committee. In my dealings with her, she’s been pleasant but I certainly wouldn’t call her a good friend of mine. I actually ran into her the other day in the elevator at the GOB since I was there to get a building permit and she obviously doing city business. We just exchanged the usual pleasantries and I got off the elevator at the second floor. In short, I don’t hang out with her; however I did donate some money to her campaign.

So I’m probably more tolerant than most because it’s a four year term and I continue to have faith she’ll learn from her mistakes. The trouble is that she’s not doing well at what she ran her campaign on, based on her blind support for a tax increase and, while I’m not familiar with the procedures behind writing applications for grants, I’ve yet to hear about any we’ve secured (or even applied for) in the time since she’s assumed the position on City Council.

And when you look at the other newcomer to City Council (Terry Cohen) and how she’s done since coming on board, Louise’s work with the budget doesn’t look very good.

Since the names of Louise Smith and Bill Reddish are now entwined in the annals of Salisbury radio history, I’ll take a moment to comment on my appearance this morning. As always I enjoyed it, and I think the main point I managed to get out talked about my feelings toward both the city’s and state’s budget process. (I also got out my comment above about Louise Smith and her prowess at securing grants.)

But astute listeners may have noticed that I alluded just to the budgets in the city of Salisbury, state of Maryland, and federally. I intentionally left out Wicomico County because they are forced to live within means by a revenue cap – instead of a 12 cent rise in property taxes, I’ll enjoy a 6 cent drop because I live a stone’s throw into the county. I know my “partner in crime” this morning, G.A. Harrison, does not like the revenue cap, but from what I understand about the budget situation previously in Wicomico County, it was the only method a frustrated public could lay its hands on to say to the county, enough!

So in essence this referendum drive can be thought of as a group of citizens wishing to put a revenue cap of sorts on the city.

It may be Polyannish of me, but I think that if Louise Smith just comes out and admits that she didn’t do her homework on the budget originally, but comes at it in a second pass with the tenacity of a bulldog and helps to cut out enough to avoid all or most of the tax increase she originally deemed necessary, she could get through this situation with reputation repaired and intact. If not, it’s going to be a long four years.

I think we’re set to go now…

As I noted last weekend, I’m looking for submissions to Carnival of Maryland 7. And I think I’ve finally found out how to get them. Let’s put it this way – either I do or Bruce at Crablaw gets them and he knows my e-mail address.

But the form to use is here, and I want LOTS of Eastern Shore submittals. Those on the other side of the bay, well, you’re welcome as well. I noticed the little CofM box has my name properly in it so we’ll see how much attention we can draw.

Carnival of Maryland #6 and an APB for Eastern Shore bloggers (repost)

Thanks to Soccer Dad who managed to find this in the internet ether.

This time around Soccer Dad has graciously agreed to be the host for our continuing semiweekly series featuring the Free State’s best bloggers, Carnival of Maryland.While that’s always important this paragraph is even moreso. I’m going to be the host for CofM7, and I want this to feature as many Maryland Eastern Shore bloggers as possible. (And yes Joe Albero I’ll count you as well even though you live in Delaware. Same goes for Howard and Karen, both just across the line in Delmar.) Sometime next week I’m sure I’ll get the info on how to set up the links to make this rig work (I’ll briefly post when the time comes), but in the meantime go through your recent original posts and figure out which ones you feel are best representative of your work – hopefully I’ll have a lot to choose from. There’s about a dozen area bloggers who I think would qualify and it’ll be interesting to see just what people submit.As for myself, I’m included in CofM6 (as usual, this time it was my 50 year plan: Education post) and my plan is to contribute an article for CofM7 that I wrote awhile back as part of another post and wanted to expand on and update for this edition.

So here’s an opportunity to show that, despite the fact that the Eastern Shore has less than 10% of the state population and that we’re pretty much forgotten in Annapolis (or worse thought of as the state’s outhouse), we have way more than our share of Maryland’s best and brightest bloggers. I look forward to compiling this for release on May 20th.

For a post I’ll give up the “mono” part of monoblogue. You see your opportunities, you have to take ‘em.

My apologies…

Unfortunately, one of my database tables was corrupted (which is why my site looked funny tonight) and in repairing this they somehow deleted my post and comments about the Carnival of Maryland 7 that I’m hosting. So tomorrow I’ll go back through what I’m looking for and attempt to coherently repost my thoughts. But it will give me an opportunity to revise and expand my earlier remarks.

So bear with me on this…

I did find out that I still have the comments but not the post. So I’ll add them to the new CofM7 post when I write it.

A question for my faithful readers to ponder…

But unfaithful ones are welcome too! 

With the recent local blog coverage of Friday’s Louise Smith v. Bill Reddish knock-down drag-out on WICO-AM, it’s made me realize that for a growing number of people the blogs are getting to become their number one or number two news source. And with the multiple outlets giving either primary or secondary coverage (in other words, the interview would be considered primary and commentary by bloggers or readers secondary) we begin to see a situation where multiple sources may start competing for a limited amount of time.

And so it is that I run into the situation I’m beginning to foresee for myself. Because I have no desire to lead a hermitic lifestyle and sit around all the time on the internet, I find it harder and harder to find time to read all of the blogs on my formerly manageable bloglist. For example, there’s 28 blogs in the Maryland Bloggers Alliance now. It’s like I have to do a triage now and go to just the ones that regularly update themselves and present good, timely information. In addition, there are the mainstream news sources out there and they are still of great importance.

So I’m curious to see what my readers think. It’s a situation where a poll won’t quite do, so this amounts to almost an open thread for comments that I’ll attempt to moderate on a pretty regular basis given my schedule.

Before the internet and prior to me moving here, I used to subscribe to my local small-town newspaper. On the average I’d say it took me a half-hour to read a weekday paper, more like an hour for a Sunday edition.

So given those time frames, here’s my question:

If you have a half-hour daily to read the blogs and other mainstream news sources most important to you – which ones do you read and why?

Obviously since you’re here reading the question I don’t count in this case. I have my own answers as well, which I think will be a follow-up and summary post this time next week. Meanwhile, I’m going to spend my time culling my own “favorites” list so I can make better use of my valuable time. 

Pumpin’ and dumpin’ – another update

I’m still getting comments every so often on my original article way back in January. So I’m updating some of the info on the stocks in question and on a couple other things I’ve found out.

I’ve received fewer junk faxes of late, just a couple have come to my attention over the last three months. So people may be finding out how to eliminate them, or the sleazy operators have found another racket. Maybe that explains the number of lotteries I’ve won lately.

As far as the stocks themselves go, even in this year of new Wall Street highs only 3 of 9 I’ve received have gone up, and three have seen their already all-but-worthless price cut in half again. You can look up the original seven on my initial post, the other two are Terra Nostra Resources Corporation (TNRO, got up to $2.88 on March 17 shortly after two separate faxes were received, now down to $2.13); and Viva World Trade, Inc. (VVWT, was 45 cents when checked on April 5 and is now 26 cents.)

The other thing I wanted to aggregate are all of the opt-out numbers. Perhaps someone with a few extra dollars to spare (or a very nice telephone company employee) can get the real owners behind all of these toll-free numbers, like who actually pays the bills. The list I have is as follows:

  • (800) 308-1372 (from Sonora Associates)
  • (800) 308-1390 (Hot Stocks on the Street, two different faxes from Pathfinder Marketing and Gemini Market News)
  • (800) 571-0031 (Uptrend Finder, UTF Newsletter)
  • (800) 910-3972 (Asian Investment Alert, Cyber Communications Services Ltd. and Gemini Market News)
  • (800) 918-2902 (Hot Stocks on the Street Cyber Communications Services Ltd. and Gemini Market News)
  • (866) 570-7730 (Green Stock Alert, Sonora Associates)
  • (888) 416-6761 (On The Move Stock Alert, OTM Stock Alerts)
  • (888) 607-7434 (Hot Stocks on the Street, Cyber Communications Services Ltd. and Gemini Market News)

On April 15 we got the last one I’m aware of. This was different from the rest, had no opt-out number or disclaimer, and was barely legible, I think it advocates a company called Fire Mountain Beverage Company and was from an outfit called “Stock Watch”. But the key was, also with the fax itself I found the automatic form our fax spits out every so often which shows faxes sent/received.

If you’ll recall, April 15 was a Sunday so our machine showed one incoming fax that day and this one had to be it (because our office was closed.) And, lo and behold, it actually had the number that the fax came from. So today I called the number and instead of a fax I got a business menu…unfortunately I couldn’t catch the name of the company but I suspect that this may be a situation where the fax and business number are the same.

Either way, here’s the number our fax sheet showed: (213) 514-5321.

It’s nice to at least get a piece of red meat for the many commentors on my article to take hold of. If you have any success let me know how this comes out! This has become an interesting little sideline for my website, which is about things that interest me and I’ve gotten interested in this phenomonon because of all the comments I’ve gotten on my original post.