Digest for Nov 9-10, 2009

There was no digest yesterday.  Today’s edition includes many of the links lost yesterday due to technical problems, along with new clips from today:

Watchdogs

• Kansas
  • $362,000 in stimulus projects for the arts in Kansas
  • Eagle Questions More Taxpayer Dollars to Schools for Fair Funding
  • Opposing Viewpoints: What’s good or bad about the “public option”?
  • Opposing Viewpoints: How should health care reform be paid for?
• Texas:  Texas autopsy center subject to open records laws?
• Mackinac Center:  $7 million open record request!

• Franklin Center:  Prosecutors Place Gag Order on News Site After Demanding List of Readers

Blogs

• Wichita Liberty:
  • Money, Banking and the Federal Reserve
  • Wichita’s tea party critics examined
  • Young Americans for Liberty: Are we rebuilding the wall?
• Principally Political: A polarizing president
• Nice Deb:  Obama Calls ObamaCare Dissenters “Teabag, Anti-Government People, Extremists”
• Kenig Konnection:  Healthcare Protest: A Faceoff in Shawnee
• All Things JoCo:  JoCo Seniors sold out by Dennis Moore and Obama and AARP
• McClatchy Watch:   Thanks to new arrangement with the WSJ, the KC Star production facility will print a popular paper
• KFL:  Strange bedfellows in Obamacare
• Heritage:  Berlin Wall Anniversary: Remembering the Victims of Communism

• State of the State KS ($):
  • Libertarians Say Smoking Ban Violates Personal Rights
  • American Lung Association Says Smoking Ban Would Help Kansas Health
• WE Blog:
  • Hard to justify upgrading Fair Funding membership
  • One measure of Kansans in Congress

• Kansas Free Press:  Moran, Tiahrt Republican Primary a Study in Contrasts [Meadowlark:  So, the left in Kansas likes Moran over Tiahrt?]
• Forward Kansas:  Kansas School Districts to Suffer More From Budget Cuts [Meadowlark:  Until we ask the students to get involved in saving money for education, the battle is one of power and money.  We're burdening our kids in a huge debt and the least we could do is let them help with the decisions.]
• Climate + Energy Project:  Vilsack: Kansas farmers would gain from cap-and-trade [Meadowlark:  How will higher taxes and increase regulations "help" farmers?]

News

• Atchison:  Kansas Department of Revenue to sell assets of longtime Atchison business to satisfy tax debt
• Baldwin City:  400-plus show up for Baldwin City H1N1 flu shot clinic
• Basehor:  Board approves membership with Schools for Fair Funding
• Hays:  Fair funding group continues to grow
• Hutchinson:
  • AG hopeful wants to campaign on experience, not politics
  • Reno County tax statements in mail or viewable online
  • Hawker Beechcraft to shut Salina plant; jobs eyed for Wichita
  • Kan. health agency working on information network
• Kansas City (Biz):
  • Mass layoffs fall in Missouri, Kansas
  • Kansas Bioscience Authority OKs $4M in financing [Meadowlark:  Having been unemployed and looking for a scientific computing job earlier this year after decades in research, giving tax dollars to a limited number of "favored" research  jobs  is an unfair use of tax dollars.  And note the last line of the article: "KBA said last month that it had committed $50 million in state money to venture capital firms with no guarantee that the money will be invested in Kansas companies." I have little confidence there will be many Kansas jobs resulting from this.]
• Kansas City (KCK):  BPU decreases fuel and energy recovery charge; says average electric bill to decrease
• Kansas City (Star):  Job openings remain close to record-lows
• Lawrence (J-W):
  • Geological Survey wins $5M grant to study carbon sequestration
  • IRS wants to give 708 Kansans their refunds
• Manhattan ($):  Pott County sees assessed value of public utilities drop
• Pratt:  USD 382 wary of joining possible new school funding lawsuit
• Salina:  Hawker Beechcraft departing Salina
• Shawnee (Kansas Liberty): Health care bill passes House, but not before dumping taxpayer-funded abortions
• Topeka (C-J):
  • Schools consider new lawsuit
  • Petition drive nets signatures [Meadowlark:  Will freedom and liberty win over government tyranny on this matter?]
• Topeka (KTKA):  No end in sight for budget problems
• Topeka (WIBW):  Ideas Needed for Kansas’ 150th Anniversary
• Wichita (Biz):
  • Sprint will cut 2,500 jobs by end of year
  • Survey: Stimulus impact on business negligible
• Wichita (Eagle:
  • Wichita schools pay to join fair-funding coalition
  • Kan. education board laments cuts in school funds
  • Kansas counties unhappy about tax break for pipeline
  • Both sides of abortion issue agree: Tiller’s killing not justified
• Wichita (KNSS):  Wichita Bookkeeper Indicted for Forgery
• Wichita (KWCH):  The Hutchinson School District Joins Schools for Fair Funding

Twitter

• @skyecoleman: I’ve never been a fan of the death penalty, the cost to taxpayers and failure to meet any of it’s goals makes it pointless. 11/9/2009 02:37 PM
• @KS_SierraClub: Sierra Club hosts 850 film screenings of Coal Country http://bit.ly/1KrbV5 Today 11:22 AM
• @CatoInstitute: In spite of its failure to bring social peace and material abundance, socialism is enjoying something of a renaissance. http://bit.ly/JuZJ Today 02:32 PM
• @KMBC: NewsChopper 9 Flies Over Crane Accident: A worker was killed and another worker was injured in a crane accident.. http://bit.ly/3RhtFI Today 05:54 PM
• @rsylvester: Think Twitter isn’t valuable for journalists on deadline? See my story on Scott Roeder tomorrow with quotes by @annereed. Today 06:01 PM
• @kansansforlife: U.S. infant mortality & prematurity rising; Abortion link omitted by March of Dimes and KDHE http://tinyurl.com/yj44raj #prolife #Kansas Today 10:51 PM