Don't Vote for Jim Bolin (District 16 House)!

I am not voting for Jim Bolin, District 16's incumbent state House member.

Two years ago, I supported Mr. Bolin for this office (something he apparently noticed). I now regret that vote.

I guess I was nostalgic about high school when he was my history teacher. And I was also a bit naive that the common sense I saw him use on Canton's city commission would carry over into the state legislature. Oh how wrong I was!

As a teacher, I expected him to be friendlier to this state's education system than most Republicans seem to be. But I was wrong. Even though he's on the Education Committee, he's not that friendly to education. He has been helping Governor Rounds to screw over K-12 education in this state. It's really disappointing to see that. Thankfully, the Democrat running for District 16 (Ann Tornberg) is also a teacher and Dems are traditionally friends to education so I'll be voting for her. And notive that Mr. Bolin has nothing about education on his Governing Principles page. Isn't that odd for someone on the Education Committee?

One of the biggest sins Mr. Bolin committed since he was elected was voting for this year's idiotic bill against global warming. Y'know, the one that was so mindnumbingly stupid the entire country made fun of our state over it (*cough*astrological*cough*). He voted for both the original very stupid version and the second version that was slightly less stupid (but still stupid). That's where he really lost me. With those votes, it was clear that he was ignoring the common sense part of himself that he used in Canton. Unfortunately he seemed to be listening to his radical, conservative ideology for the last two years.

So as much as I still respect Mr. Bolin, I will not be voting for him. And I urge other District 16 voters to do the same.

(Dear Conservatives: While I have your attention, I ask that you please stop saying global warming is "just a theory, not a fact." When using those words as scientific terms, they basically mean the same freaking thing. So saying something is "just a theory, not a fact" shows that you conservatives are scientifically illiterate. Thank you for your time. - Love, Haggs)

Haggard News Is Back

Yep, that's right! I'm coming out of blogtirement. There's some interesting things going on in Canton, South Dakota right now and I'm hoping to chronicle them right here.

One interesting thing relates to this story KELO ran on the 6 PM news last night. I'm not going to talk about the police suspension... because I just really don't care. But what piqued my interest was this part:

Heiskell says this is the latest in a list of frustrating actions by the town's government. He's a former member of the city council who's proposing the city return to its previous form of government. That would mean the mayor and council would make decisions, and a city manager would have a more limited roll.

I wrote about Canton's last change of government in 2007 and the firestorm that surrounded it. I admittedly got too hot under the collar about it, but it was an interesting time to live here. So I'm planning to revisit the change of government story again and look at the history of how it all got started. So stay tuned!