Shared Parenting Peeps on TVW

Hargrove killed a bill that does the right thing and attempted instead to pass a bill with pork for the divorce industry, while doing nothing to stop the courts from raping fathers blue in the face in custody disputes.

The testimony shows the peeps using logic, reason and common sense to get a floor provision put in disputed custody battles where abuse or neglect is not a factor. The bottom line is that the legislature hasn't got the stones to take on the divorce and dome$tic violence industries.

Click or Search on "2SSB 5470 Revising provisions concerning dissolution proceedings" and jump to the half way point of the video.

Touching an elephant

If you've taken enough yubba dubba doo corporate feel good training you've probably heard the story of two or more people touching an elephant and describing some very different things. A spinster in the Seattle Times writes about why women aren't marrying or staying married. A bitter divorced guy over at nomarriage.com provides another description of that elephant. They could both use a shot of tequila in my opinion.

For most of the population the decision to not follow the 1950's nuclear family model isn't really a choice. Rather today's knuckleheads in both genders fall short in the selflessness, courage, forgiveness and commitment bins that are required for successful long term relationships. As a result, for the second generation running, most of today's high school graduates will not achieve the same level of prosperity of their grandparents. Despite that fact, this lemon of a situation is not without lemonade potential. Most of the illegal aliens that are now populating our country have the same work ethic as the generations of Americans growing up in the depression and WWII era.

Lastly the zero points out today that foreclosures in Thurston are skyrocketing. How about a celebration for the "non traditional" single parent homes trying to afford that dream house? Of course they are no worse off than the traditional families where one or both spouses carry a couple grand in credit card debt- in other words divorces waiting to happen. For the rest of us, have a sip of coffee, sit back and marvel at how your parents and grandparents achieved the impossible.

McCain makes ass of himself, doesn’t apologize

He apologized for saying Tar Baby, but appears just fine with the situation in family courts. I’m thankful he stands nil chance of winning the primary. Be certain this position is echoing quite loudly through the always-growing father’s rights channels.

In the past I have been indifferent to McCain’s political controversies. In fact I prefer aisle crossers over those who would put the party spank over their convictions. However, if McCain doesn’t think the number of kids growing up without 2 parents in this country is a major issue- he isn’t fit to be in office at all.

5 million dollars of advice

Let me give the DOT 5 million dollars of advice.

• Stop printing license tabs- no ticket is written w/out running the plate.
• Renew license tabs every 2 years like Oregon does. The DOT gets the cash sooner and cuts administrative costs in half.

You can use the extra money to build another dedicated overpass for horses next to the one you built dedicated for bikes here in Olympia which is 50 yards from the one that carries cars and pedestrians.

How to not win a war

Making it to the surface this week is the takeover of Iraq's oil distribution by the Iraqi military (with lots of oversight). It seems a year after the corruption was first spotted-terrorists w/in the government are still robbing the industry blind and using the money fuel terror and to line their own pockets.

Think for a minute what 9 out of 10 successful military leaders throughout history would have done to the team leads in charge if the books failed match the proverbial meter at a refinery. Stalin in particular.

That country is at war. The enemy is killing anything and everything it can and we are worried about whether the people stealing oil and killing our soldiers and their civilians are going to like our tactics. Put that on a sign and stand at the port.

an aside- check out dictionary.com for "oversight" I mean the 3rd definition in this post. The first two were used by the Bush administration for the past year on this problem.

Senator Jim Hargrove, YOU are responsible for this starved 4 year old

This year and last year, Senator Hargrove killed 2 bills in committee that would have given this mother 1/3 time with her kid without having to spend a nickel. He also voted to kill a similar amendment to his own bill in which he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the corrupt lobby that opposed shared parenting while making a tidy profit off of divorce and custody battles.

In this most recent case it was the mother, not the father that was eliminated from the child’s life. The bottom line is she didn’t want to go bankrupt trying to see her kid. How would the Senator feel about this boy’s death being on his doorstep? How would you feel being the parent paying child support for this child while having no parental rights or time?

Thankfully a neighbor stepped in. Had Senator Hargrove done the right thing last year, there would have been 1-3 more adults involved in this kid's life. Hillary Clinton had some slogan about that.

I normally don’t point out individual cases as reference for championing legislation as there are plenty of monsters on both sides of the gender fence. For every mother that drowns her kids in the tub, there is an a-hole father that starves a kid to death. That is exactly why shared parenting is necessary- further with the growing presence of meth, there needs to be additional mechanisms for grandparents to assert guardianship over their grandkids. Family is something you fight to preserve, not destroy for a profit.

It’s certainly not in the child’s best interest to waste away until the buffoons at DSHS come to the rescue. No thanks again to all the folks in the DV industry for helping to starve this and other children to death with abusive parents. This is the effect of your lobby getting a 30% cut of every marriage license fee.

Unions response to teacher merit bonus: Waaaaaaa!!!!!

I've stated many times I would vote and campaign heavily for a merit based pay bonus for public school teachers. These programs however are HATED by unions.

This week a Houston union calls the waaaaaambulance on a computer error bumping bonus checks for teachers. The union would rather take bread out of the mouths of their members than see them appropriately recognized for their accomplishments. Yep- that works wonders on morale from an HR perspective. It's a wonder why more of our top college students don't seek out teaching as a future profession.

On a related note- I noticed the lobby for more math and science in Thurston's public schools wasn't in line for part of that sales tax increase. Perhaps if they got a 30% cut of every marriage license fee in Washington like the Domestic Violence industry does, they could afford to send someone to lobby McCloud's office too.

WSJ notes a profitable niche in the divorce industry

The Wall Street Journal ran an article today (3/8/07 section B1, Ann Carrns) highlighting the growing number of law firms positioning themselves as the “Guy’s Guys” in divorce. I've even noticed one marketing themselves as such here in Thurston. No doubt, there are a lot of law firms jumping on this wagon. The one noted in the WSJ is booming despite assertions by the spokeswoman representing the taxpayer funded women’s advocacy legal networks that there is no bias or problem with the multibillion dollar lobby stacking the cards against fathers in court.

That must be why dad’s get primary custody in fewer than 10% of custody disputes and usually go bankrupt in the process, right?

I’m no fan of these “dads” oriented firms as they are doing nothing to change a system that is broken. What's more is their metric is billable hours- so even if you do win against a system that's been stacked- it will be at the expense of all the community property you and your spouse started the process with plus all the debt you can rack up until one or both of you is bankrupt.

On one hand it's pretty scary that the bias against fathers in family courts has risen to the point where the WSJ would notice the profit potential. On the other, it does serve as a powerful messaging tool for those of us looking to see the bias removed from the courts. Unfortunately no one lets go of a multi billion dollar a year franchise easily.

Thurston County looking to jack sales tax

Among other priorities according to the Zero -"$6.7 million raised by the tax increase would go into a regional pool to pay for early-intervention programs for children in abusive, negligent or violent households, teen-outreach strategies and adult jail-diversion efforts. "

Now if experience speaks well- this money will go to fuel the local divorce industry and lobbying efforts of non profits. Residents should expect more full time employees of non profit orgs hanging out at the legislature to push an agenda. Further- these institutional programs are expensive and have NO accountability to do anything but put more money into the incestuous lobbying game that's already going strong up at the Hazard County Courthouse.

Instead of jacking the sales tax to fund the lobbying efforts and agendas of orgs like those I've mentioned in earlier posts -with bottom of the barrel attorneys that thrive on dumping fuel on already volatile family situations- they could just pass shared parenting legislation so that many of these at risk kids would have two parents instead of one + a support check.

Ah yes- but the said money train already has plenty of tax payer funded lobbyists to make sure that doesn't happen.

Nuclear family? Yes a novel idea from an era of far lower taxes and smaller government, but sadly the concept of two parent families is passe- or as the Washington Post puts it- for the rich and elite.

On the flip side- this tax is regressive in nature and nails hardest those single mom low income "non traditional" families that the left celebrates and encourages- so there's a little bit of cosmic justice to it all.

Brooke Hogan filling a social chasm

The Hogan family values are filling more than a want- it's a need.

It's no secret I'm an evening or two away from cancelling cable. However there are a few shows that break the trend of the semi-retarded bimbos and reality TV bends celebrating bad behavior. In a wasteland of anti role models there are few shows you would REALLY want your impressionable preteen or teen daughter / son watching.

Hogan Knows Best is one of them.

In a society where family values have a shelf life of 6 months, it's incredibly refreshing to see the Hogans in action at the end of the day. In the wake of Britney, Nicole, Paris and virtually every model of bad behavior, Brooke Hogan is a fresh breeze in an otherwise stinky room. I haven't tuned into C89 in a while, but thanks for posting that video of Brooke saying she DOES want to behave like a positive role model. Kudo's to Terry and Linda for raising a standup daughter. Pop culture NEEDS more of this.