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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (335803)	4/29/2007 4:22:39 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1575035

Salt Lake City is 50% conservative Mormon conformist and 50% very liberal "other". The Mormons vote as a block however their current prophet directs, so the "other" vote as a block against them. The "others" won the last mayoral election.

To: tejek who wrote (335803)	4/29/2007 4:43:59 PM
From: bentway	Respond to of 1575035

I went to the "Crossroads of the West" gun show today. I almost bought a used AR-7 .22 takedown survival rifle, but someone bought it before I got back to it. An interesting trend I noticed. There are tons of cheap AK-47's available, mostly Chinese makes. There are also lots of modification kits to turn these into even nastier and meaner-looking assualt rifles, including full-auto mod instructions and 70 round drum magazines. It seems like it's a rapidly growing hobby. Tiny companies compete to see who can make the scariest AK-47 mod kit. The place was way more PACKED than last time I went. It seems all the recent violence, far from turning people away from guns, has compelled people to go and BUY a gun or two. Another neat gun that caught my eye was a revolver pistol that fired 410 shotgun shells! The full auto crowd was there with machine guns and .50 caliber sniper rifles accurate to a mile away. A family event in the West!

To: tejek who wrote (335803)	4/30/2007 12:22:58 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1575035

Still more of the same from Hatch By Rebecca Walsh Tribune Columnist Article Last Updated: 04/24/2007 04:12:45 AM MDT sltrib.com ( This is from the local rag, and reflects local SLC sentiment. ) With all due respect to the beltway rumor mill, why would Orrin Hatch want to be U.S. attorney general? He's already so good at the job he's got - shill for the Bush administration (make that two Bush administrations). After nearly 30 years in Washington, Hatch's idiosyncracies are familiar to Utahns: writing sappy songs about God and country, quoting novelist Michael Crichton as an expert on global warming, jumping to the president's defense, if only to have one more chance to be on "Meet the Press." But Hatch's performance last week during Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' daylong question-and-answer session in the Senate Judiciary Committee was a new low point - a chance to see Utah's senior senator at his partisan, brown-nosing best. While other senators used their time to actually try to figure out how much Gonzales knew about the U.S. Attorney house-cleaning, Hatch decided it was time to help the sixth-graders watching write a research paper on the U.S. Department of Justice. "How many employees do you have?" About 110,000, Gonzales sighed, grateful for the reprieve. "What are the main, core functions of the Department of Justice?" Do you "overview the FBI?" You spend a lot of time traveling in the country as well, don't you? Been to the White House? Go to cabinet meetings? You go to intelligence meetings, right? I've seen you there? The Inquisition, it wasn't. You've met the twins? Pet the dog? Slept in the Lincoln Bedroom? (OK, I made those three up.) Other senators on both sides of the political aisle chided Gonzales for his dismal short-term memory - he used the phrase "I don't recall" or some variation 40 times during the spectacle. Texas Republican Sen. John Cornyn called the scandal investigation "deplorable." Alabama GOP Sen. Jeff Sessions told Gonzales to be alert and honest and direct - "give it your best shot." In contrast, Hatch's leading questions - he explained them as his effort to educate "our fellow citizens" - made a mockery of the proceedings. Maybe that was the point. It reminds me of another committee meeting Hatch turned into a joke: Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas' confirmation hearings 16 years ago. The senator became chief investigator, defense attorney and judge all at once - this time to make the case for George H.W. Bush's controversial nominee. Pooh-poohing attorney Anita Hill's claims that Thomas had sexually harassed her when they worked together at the federal anti-discrimination agency, Hatch concluded she had been inspired by a scene from the "Exorcist." Thomas, of course, went on to sit on the bench, distinguishing himself for his silence during oral arguments. Hill went on to teach. And Hatch went on and on and on - unchecked by Utah voters or critical thought. walsh@sltrib.com