Vote Bio

Aaron Rochester, city councilman in Sioux City, Iowa, really hates dogs who are dangerous–which he why he led the effort to ban pit-bulls in that city. Unfortunately, he’s now finding himself on the recieving end of a vicious law.

The city councilman who led the drive to ban pit bulls in Sioux City is waiting to find out whether his Labrador retriever will be euthanized for biting a neighbor.

Councilman Aaron Rochester said Tuesday he has appealed Sioux City Animal Control’s determination that his family’s yellow lab is vicious after Saturday’s incident, which resulted in an emergency room visit and five stitches for the injured neighbor.

Sioux City Police Capt. Pete Groetken said he held a hearing on Rochester’s appeal Tuesday morning and will reach a decision by the end of the week. He can either uphold Animal Control’s designation or overturn it.

The 3-year-old dog, Jake, is being held at the Animal Control shelter until the case is resolved.

This is tragic for the dog, but hilariously ironic for the rest of us. The councilman foolishly tried to prevent other people from owning a certain kind of dog, in order to score some political points, and now his dog has been declared “vicious”!

So, that title probably has you baffled right? But it honestly isn’t far off. Penn Hills Middle School in Pennsylvania has a zero policy towards weapons–fair enough, right? Which is why they expelled 15-year-old Taylor Ray-Jetter for bringing an eyebrow trimmer to school? ….bwuh?

Taylor was immediately suspended and was expelled Wednesday.

The punishment has her worried about her future.

“I want to be an anesthesiologist –a nurse anesthetist and I feel like it’s going to be on my record so it’s going to dampen a lot of things I wanted to do for myself and I’m very upset,” she said. “I did not come up there to hurt anybody.”

Taylor is a member of the basketball team, 9-year Girl Scout, a youth usher, a member of the choir and leadership team, among other activities.

The superintendent says the tool is a weapon and Taylor’s punishment is all apart of a very strict zero tolerance policy.

Yea, those 9-year old Girl Scout’s with eyebrow trimmers–that’s who you’ve got to watch out for!

The Federal Reserve System is a collection of the largest banks in America, who get together to determine monetary policy. As dubious as that is, most people believe their claim that they are just looking after the best interests of the economy–and perhaps they are, and just suck at it. So with the Fed printing money, and the Bank of England about to do the same, it is both timely and just for the Time to present a Photo Gallery of Germany’s devalued Weimar Republic’s currency. During this time, Germany even printed a $100 trillion mark note. The black market flourished, bartering made a comeback. Why is all of this important? While it is true that we should try to stabalize the economy, we should also be quite concerned about the negative effects of inflation!

A public school teacher in Tennessee was paid $4,400 to coach soccer, the only problem being that the school has no soccer team. Awful good pay for having never fielded even one man, huh?

Dr. Jim Scales, Hamilton County school superintendent, said the district may review its practice of paying coaches in advance.

Gee, do ya think Dr? I’d love to hear what the squash, curling, and fencing coaches were paid!

Over at TheRawStory, they have covered a story which should be of some interest to every American citizen becuase it concerns their taxes and their government. Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan told Bob Schieffer on Face the Nation that the United States ought to seriously consider legalization of marijuana.

“Those that suggest that some of these measures need to be looked at understand the dynamics of the drug trade; you have to bring demand down and one way to do it is to move in that direction [towards legalization]

In addition to the Mexican diplomat, three former presidents of Latin America – Former Colombian President Cesar Gaviria, former Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso, and former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo – have urged the United States to at least seriously discuss the issue of marijuana legalization. They are, of course, right–but hypocritical. In their own countries, they stifle the legalization movement and are even tougher on drug-related criminals than here in the United States. Of course, that is likely due to U.S. pressure. This is a several billion dollar industry which could supply billions to the economy and millions to busted-budgets nationwide.

Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan

Johann Hari over at Huffington Post has an interesting perspective on the so-called Pirate Problem. The story takes the side of the so-called Pirates by suggesting that they are simply an impoverished defense force. After many decades of looting, military intervention, and the revokation of property rights–the Somalians have at least some point.

They call themselves the Volunteer Coastguard of Somalia – and it’s not hard to see why. In a surreal telephone interview, one of the pirate leaders, Sugule Ali, said their motive was “to stop illegal fishing and dumping in our waters… We don’t consider ourselves sea bandits. We consider sea bandits [to be] those who illegally fish and dump in our seas and dump waste in our seas and carry weapons in our seas.”

The pirates are well-liked by their countrymen for a reason, with over 70% of Somalians “strongly supporting piracy as a form of national defence of the country’s territorial waters.” It is hard to imagine the citizens of the United States supporting piracy, as the Somalians do now, but in 1776, it was a different story. George Washington and the continental congress paid privateers, pirates, large sums of money to gaurd their territorial waters and fight the British Royal Navy. Local populations in South Carolina, Louisiana, and Texas were known to support various local pirates, too.