Month: December 2008

Sheffie Kadane did the right thing

My city councilman Sheffie Kadane did the right thing and retracted the hoax email. Here’s his message:

Dear Constituent:

I want to address an email that went out from my Council Office on Friday, December 12, which seems to have gotten a lot of attention.

It appears I’ve become the victim of an Internet hoax. The hoaxster laid out a realistic-sounding plot that carjackers were allegedly using at NorthPark Mall. And in my zeal to make sure my constituents remained safe, we quickly emailed this information around the district.

But now I’m told by police that this was a hoax that apparently has been around for years. Police say they know of no such incidents in or around NorthPark Mall this year, and while people should always be alert and aware, this is not a crime trend.

Well, I must say that I’m sorry we didn’t catch this sooner. And certainly want everyone to know we think the police and the security out at NorthPark Mall are doing a great job keeping everyone safe during the holidays.

And I also hope everyone will join me out at NorthPark Mall this weekend, because I still have quite a bit of shopping to do before Christmas!

Have a safe and blessed holiday season.

Sheffie Kadane

Councilmember, District 9

Thank you, Sheffie.

Debunking my City Councilman

I like my city councilman, Sheffie Kadane. He’s done a good job for my district, and he has been responsive to my neighborhood’s requests.

But his staff screwed up. Last Friday, they sent an obvious mail hoax to all District 9 community leaders, falsely alleging that a local TV station reported on a North Park Mall carjacking scheme.

I was the first to tell him it’s a hoax. His staff didn’t budge.

Amidst their refusal to retract and increasingly bizarre justifications, I tipped off Allen Gwinn, publisher of Dallas.org. That resulted in this article: Council Member’s Carjacking Email Debunked.

Responsible government should never mislead constituents. Attention to issues is already scarce; it’s terrible to waste it on a confirmed hoax!

I have no problem retracting misstatements. Nothing less is acceptable from a public leader.

Why was that so hard for Sheffie’s office? Does pride trump the truth?

Update: it’s hitting the Dallas blogosphrere:

All they had to do is retract it!

Auto worker unions are eyeball gougers

no_uaw_smallTHANK YOU to the Senate for killing the automaker union bailout.

Yes, union bailout. Unions are mostly behind the domestic auto industry’s failure. They literally killed the “goose that laid the golden egg” by forcing salaries almost 60% more than PhD college professors!

$160K total compensation for repetitive, assembly line work.

This bailout is–literally–leftist Congressmen buying votes from their leftist union friends. A few supposed conservatives jumped on for flaky reasons, including “my district needs a bailout, too”; paranoia of economic apocalypse; and because they fear unionized constituents.

Generations of automaker management have failed to convert their supposed vision into quality products. That’s partly why domestics have made crap cars for decades.

But if vision is currency, unions are the eyeball gougers. When unions guzzle so much revenue, what’s left but scraps? What funds innovation? Management’s #1 fault is playing nice with unions.

Did the Senate kill the union bailout? Perhaps, but, again, the unions caused the failure: they stubbornly refused meaningful compensation concessions. Senate Republicans demanded they drop wages to PhD college professor-levels instead of medical doctor levels. Either way, union members would still be overpaid for turning a screwdriver all day.

I hope this debate causes a colossal shift in union legitimacy.

Unions have their place. I support them when they rise against bona fide workplace abuses.

But when become institutionalized, when their purpose is a monopoly on labor, when they violate our Constitutional right to free association (“closed shop”), unions are a strategic blunder. They shift broad economic focus from what makes the United States special–innovation–and instead try make us like every other gray, socialist or communist country–artificial wage inflation. That’s why domestic automakers are failing–unions converted them from innovators into a socialist jobs program.

It’s time for the auto unions to go. If the foreign automakers’ non-union employees are so highly paid, then domestics can pull it off, too.

One last note: Nancy Pelosi claims we’re playing “Russian roulette” by not bailing out her union buddies. In fact, any Russian roulette is when the bailout debt causes future inflationary pressure.