Friday, 14 July 2006

Blocking Web Sites to State Employees

The left in this state have freaked out over the fact that the state has blocked people from viewing political web sites. In fact, Mark Nickolas from BluegrassReport.org has filed a federal lawsuit claiming he was discriminated against because of his criticism of Gov. Ernie Fletcher.

Yeah Mark, he did it to target you! Well, you know my blog is blocked from the state and I support Ernie Fletcher! Am I discriminated against as well? See I don't think I am. Why? Because these employees can read my blog when they are home. They don't need to be reading it while on the clock. The reality is the state like many business are trying to cut down access the unproductive side of the Internet from employees.

Finance Cabinet spokeswoman Jill Midkiff said no individual sites were targeted, but rather categories of sites -- such as blogs, entertainment, humor, online auctions and shopping. The software was imperfect and has been updated to ban new sites or unblock legitimate ones, she said.
A review of state employee computer use had found that workers were spending significant amounts of time viewing sites unrelated to their jobs, Midkiff said. "There is no attempt to limit anyone's free speech," she said. "This is an effort to ensure that state government employees are using state government resources on state time to do state work."

Personally, I think it shows that this administration cares about how it is spending our taxpayer dollars. It shows that the state is being run more like a business and less like a welfare center.

Posted by elendil at 6:52 PM in Kentucky Politics

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Louisville Arena Boondoggle Continues

The Louisville Metro Council voted last night to approve funding of the downtown arena. The vote was 18-5 in favor of spending 200 million tax dollars to fund the arena.

Republican's immediately called on Abramson to veto the legislation because a provision gave labor unions a seat at the table when determining who will build the arena. The provision would give union's the ability to stall construction if their demands are not met. Such dependency on the unions will invariable drive construction costs much higher than originally estimated.

Of course, Abramson won't do anything. He is in an election year and doesn't have the stomach for doing anything that might upset someone.

Gov. Fletcher, on the other hand, is rightly concerned about this sudden change in course. This late attempt to hijack the process is really lame since it is nothing more than an attempt to pander to the Democratic base. The Democrats are hoping that the project has too much momentum to be stopped by this partisan ploy.

If I were the Governor, I would veto the plan saying that partisan politics has stopped this project from moving forward. The state has held up its end of the bargain, but the Louisville metro council has decided to not hold up their end of the bargain. Thus putting the blame back where it belongs, on the Democrats in the metro council.

Due to the perceived importance of the project, I doubt Fletcher will do more than "express concerns" over the new proposal and "threaten" to veto in hopes of getting the mayor to veto the agreement. But I suspect the unions will end up with a seat at the project table.

So my question is this. With the unions now becoming involved in the construction, do you still believe it will only cost $400 million to build? The boondoggle continues onward, wasting tax payer money at every step.

Posted by elendil at 6:34 PM in Kentucky Politics

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