Wednesday, March 03, 2010

It's the arrogance, stupid!

Some things are just incomprehensible.

The Arizona legislature, after the unmitigated disaster that occurred last year (when the Governor essentially created a budget out of their failure by vetoing-and-pasting parts of bills together) and apparently unbuoyed by the fact that a poll last year showed their approval ratings are lower than those of Congress has been looking to reward themselves with more power, more prestige and promotions.

It started when they began seeking to change the right of voters to retain or not retain certain judges to it being done by the legislature. Constitutional issues regarding seperation of powers aside (especially since some of those judges have to rule on the constitutionality of laws the legislature passes,) I guess they just don't trust the voters to make those decisions. I can almost understand that, after all look at who we've been electing to the legislature for so many years.

Judges? Why not Senators. Republican lawmaker David Stevens has proposed that ' + text + ''; } } } return text; } var parse = function(data) { cursor = null; var comments = []; if (data && data.feed && data.feed.entry) { for (var i = 0, entry; entry = data.feed.entry[i]; i++) { var comment = {}; // comment ID, parsed out of the original id format var id = /blog-(\d+).post-(\d+)/.exec(entry.id.$t); comment.id = id ? id[2] : null; comment.body = bodyFromEntry(entry); comment.timestamp = Date.parse(entry.published.$t) + ''; if (entry.author && entry.author.constructor === Array) { var auth = entry.author[0]; if (auth) { comment.author = { name: (auth.name ? auth.name.$t : undefined), profileUrl: (auth.uri ? auth.uri.$t : undefined), avatarUrl: (auth.gd$image ? auth.gd$image.src : undefined) }; } } if (entry.link) { if (entry.link[2]) { comment.link = comment.permalink = entry.link[2].href; } if (entry.link[3]) { var pid = /.*comments\/default\/(\d+)\?.*/.exec(entry.link[3].href); if (pid && pid[1]) { comment.parentId = pid[1]; } } } comment.deleteclass = 'item-control blog-admin'; if (entry.gd$extendedProperty) { for (var k in entry.gd$extendedProperty) { if (entry.gd$extendedProperty[k].name == 'blogger.itemClass') { comment.deleteclass += ' ' + entry.gd$extendedProperty[k].value; } else if (entry.gd$extendedProperty[k].name == 'blogger.displayTime') { comment.displayTime = entry.gd$extendedProperty[k].value; } } } comments.push(comment); } } return comments; }; var paginator = function(callback) { if (hasMore()) { var url = config.feed + '?alt=json&v=2&orderby=published&reverse=false&max-results=50'; if (cursor) { url += '&published-min=' + new Date(cursor).toISOString(); } window.bloggercomments = function(data) { var parsed = parse(data); cursor = parsed.length < 50 ? null : parseInt(parsed[parsed.length - 1].timestamp) + 1 callback(parsed); window.bloggercomments = null; } url += '&callback=bloggercomments'; var script = document.createElement('script'); script.type = 'text/javascript'; script.src = url; document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0].appendChild(script); } }; var hasMore = function() { return !!cursor; }; var getMeta = function(key, comment) { if ('iswriter' == key) { var matches = !!comment.author && comment.author.name == config.authorName && comment.author.profileUrl == config.authorUrl; return matches ? 'true' : ''; } else if ('deletelink' == key) { return config.baseUri + '/delete-comment.g?blogID=' + config.blogId + '&postID=' + comment.id; } else if ('deleteclass' == key) { return comment.deleteclass; } return ''; }; var replybox = null; var replyUrlParts = null; var replyParent = undefined; var onReply = function(commentId, domId) { if (replybox == null) { // lazily cache replybox, and adjust to suit this style: replybox = document.getElementById('comment-editor'); if (replybox != null) { replybox.height = '250px'; replybox.style.display = 'block'; replyUrlParts = replybox.src.split('#'); } } if (replybox && (commentId !== replyParent)) { replybox.src = ''; document.getElementById(domId).insertBefore(replybox, null); replybox.src = replyUrlParts[0] + (commentId ? '&parentID=' + commentId : '') + '#' + replyUrlParts[1]; replyParent = commentId; } }; var hash = (window.location.hash || '#').substring(1); var startThread, targetComment; if (/^comment-form_/.test(hash)) { startThread = hash.substring('comment-form_'.length); } else if (/^c[0-9]+$/.test(hash)) { targetComment = hash.substring(1); } // Configure commenting API: var configJso = { 'maxDepth': config.maxThreadDepth }; var provider = { 'id': config.postId, 'data': items, 'loadNext': paginator, 'hasMore': hasMore, 'getMeta': getMeta, 'onReply': onReply, 'rendered': true, 'initComment': targetComment, 'initReplyThread': startThread, 'config': configJso, 'messages': msgs }; var render = function() { if (window.goog && window.goog.comments) { var holder = document.getElementById('comment-holder'); window.goog.comments.render(holder, provider); } }; // render now, or queue to render when library loads: if (window.goog && window.goog.comments) { render(); } else { window.goog = window.goog || {}; window.goog.comments = window.goog.comments || {}; window.goog.comments.loadQueue = window.goog.comments.loadQueue || []; window.goog.comments.loadQueue.push(render); } })(); // ]]>
  1. ...I can almost understand that, after all look at who we've been electing to the legislature for so many years.

    Well stated, friend. And btw, nice post title :) LOL

    Join us in conversation at http://www.AZLegislation.com!

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  2. Just as a reminder, state legislatures used to select their states' U.S. Senators. In fact, this concept (along with equal vs. proportional representation), was intended to maintain a legislature with one house representing the people, and the other representing the States.

    http://twitter.com/zinvegas
    http://thezspot.today.com

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