A look at some of the 2012 legislature’s bills

By Rep. Ken Andrus
• Statewide Oil and Gas Regulation and Exploration – HB464
Idahoans have long envied Wyoming’s oil and gas reserves – Wyoming has consistently come to our state and pirated off good teachers, enticing them with considerably higher wages.
With the recent discovery of natural gas in Idaho’s Treasure Valley, an Oil and Gas Conservation Commission was created. A new industry to Idaho — it requires regulation.
As with water wells, the oil and gas wells will be state regulated and permitted.
Opposition to the bill came when two counties and environmental interests wanted total local control. They contended water quality would be compromised by well fracturing and injection.
The Association of Counties supported the bill — local control was preserved for infrastructure, set backs, roads, etc.
Oil and Gas officials made it plain that they would not invest unless there was statewide and uniform regulation. They could not deal with checkerboard (county to county) rules.
State well injection standards were not affected by the bill and well fracturing is not intended. Before commencing, a driller has to prove there will be no negative effect to water quality and he is responsible to mitigate should there be any.
In my view, HB 464 was the major jobs bill of the entire legislative session. Interestingly, all Democratic legislators voted against the bill except 2 house members. Democrats began the session touting jobs bills.
• The Ultrasound Bill – SB1387
Most everyone has heard of the ultrasound bill. It created more emotion and passion than any other piece of legislation I have witnessed in my eight years in the House.
A pro-life bill, the intention was to ensure a woman be properly informed before having an abortion. Ultrasound is routinely performed before any abortion takes place. HB1387 would require an ultrasound, free of charge. Since transvaginal ultrasound is the method to detect development in early pregnancy there was great public outcry from both pro-choice and pro-life people (mainly women) who contended this was a blatant invasion of a woman’s privacy.
After passing 23-12 in the Senate, there was not a committee hearing or vote in the House. Many, including myself were relieved. I am pro-life but some of the language in this bill was very sensitive.
It is inevitable there will be pro-life legislation next year. Pro-life organizations insist women often do not have sufficient information before an abortion. Is an abortion clinic or surgeon going to try and talk a woman out of the procedure? That is their livelihood. It is not in their business interest to try and talk a woman out of the procedure.
Pro-life leaders maintain women contemplating an abortion who see or hear a heartbeat may change their mind about having this often life-altering operation. Pro-lifers are also very exercised in their effort to save the life of an unborn baby.
• Personal and Business Income Tax HB563
This legislation reduced personal income tax from 7.85 percent to 7.4 percent and corporate income tax from 7.6 to 7.4 percent. It would mean a person earning $60,000 to $100,000 would pay $71 less per year. The sponsors claimed we needed the reduction to be competitive with surrounding states and have a tax rate that will attract business.
How would a person earning over $60,000 miss $71? I was tempted to not vote in favor since it took $35 million right off the table which we could have used for education, health & welfare, and to restore rainy day funds and reserves.
I thought of President Reagan. Under President Jimmy Carter’s administration, I was paying 18% interest and having a hard time keeping my business solvent. One of Reagan’s first acts as President was to reduce taxes which stimulated economic growth for many, many years. After all — when is it not a good time to reduce taxes?
• Wind Power Generation – HB 561
In 2007 the Idaho Legislature created a two-year moratorium on all coal-fired generation plants to stop the construction of a coal-fired plant in rural Jerome County. To encourage ‘clean’ energy, the legislature passed tax incentives for wind power. Wind towers sprung up everywhere. By 2011 some people said wind generation had exceeded our needs and proposed a moratorium on windmills.
I opposed the moratorium because we had encouraged great investment in Idaho through incentives, and to suddenly reverse our position would result in significant financial damage to investors. I proposed doing away with the state incentives and let the free market dictate windmill numbers. The 2011 legislature did just that.
This session (2012) there was another wind generation moratorium bill. It died in the House for lack of support.
The issue is more complicated. The federal government is involved through PURPA – Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act. This requires the power company (public utilities) buy energy, under certain conditions, from any person who produces it. The utility has to pay an “avoided cost” because the producer of the wind power has production costs for the facility and the utility does not. The public utility commission sets the rate the power company can charge you — the customer. This is always a percent for profit plus cost. Regardless of how much it costs the utility to produce or buy power, that cost is passed on to the consumer.
This session, a Rocky Mountain Power executive explicitly informed me that their company could produce power cheaper than they could buy it (but are forced to buy,) including wind power.
The bottom line is you and I are paying higher utility costs than we would if there were not local windmills — which are often bought as soon as completed by large investment companies, because they receive a federal tax write off.
The windmill issue is not resolved and is complicated. It is much more complex than the quiet pastoral scene of a Dutch windmill on a calendar picture.

This column was written by state Rep. Ken Andrus, R-Lava Hot Springs.

Copyright piracy abounds online

By Martin Hackworth

Recently I came across a book that I wrote years ago reproduced in its entirety (including the copyright notice) on a website. This particular book was published in two editions in 1984 and 1990 and, though currently out of print, still has value to collectors — value that evaporates as soon as prospective purchasers figure out that they can just download the book free from the Web.
Since this particular website was hosted by an ISP located in the United States I emailed the administrator my intent to issue a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) takedown notice. Copyright infringement on the Internet is so pervasive that it’s simply better to “learn to live with what you can’t rise above” and use the DMCA to force ISP’s to deal with uncooperative websites. MotorcycleJazz.com has encountered dozens of instances of our content being inappropriately used. Fortunately this particular site administrator was very cooperative, apologetic even, and took down all of the material in question within five minutes. I thank him for that.
This dénouement was brought about by the good fortune of this all occurring in the United States where the DMCA applies. Europe has a similar provision in the European Union Copyright Directive (EUCD). The bad news is that had the offending website been located in Russia, China or a host of other places I’d have been flat out of luck. Copyright piracy is one of the economic pillars of many countries in the world, some of them very opportunistically lawless. My book, any content on MotorcycleJazz.com and any intellectual property that I am currently receiving royalties for is fair game for digital thieves in many places. Anyone who creates music, movies, books or just about anything else that can be digitized and copied will likely find the fruits of their labor available somewhere on the Web where they stand about as much chance of getting fair compensation as I do of throwing a rock across the Pacific Ocean and smacking some Beijing pirate upside the head.
The United States Congress has been attempting to address the issue of online piracy — one that has serious ramifications for our economy — with the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA) in the House and Senate, respectively. These bills created a huge firestorm of controversy a few weeks ago when Google, Wikipedia and other Internet companies staged protests that created a wave of blowback via social media. The interesting thing about all of this to me, as both a content provider and a copyright holder, was the one-sided and largely fact-free nature of this mobbing of the creative community.
The fact of the matter is that SOPA and PIPA, though poorly written and unlikely to survive the courts, were largely not what they were portrayed to be. I know this because I took the time to do something that almost no one ranting on Facebook and Twitter did — I read them. I had to consult with friends in the legal community for clarification on a few points but with a little effort I managed to work through them. I found, by the way, little of the onerous promise of some imminent Internet Armageddon. A lot of the same people, it seems, who are eager to occupy every public square from here to Poughkeepsie when it’s Bank of America doling out the word on how it all goes down will readily accept the word of other corporate behemoths just because they happen to have more of a presence on the Web than on the street (and cooler website graphics).
To hear tell, Google’s slogan “Do no evil” has now transcended mere advertising and might as well be coming from a burning bush. If you want to watch a thunderstorm come along and rain all over that bush try dealing with Google’s customer service sometime. That’ll put things in some perspective, guaranteed. Something else — Google opposed the DMCA back in the day. Evidently, according to Google, no one else does any evil as well.
To be clear, I do not support SOPA or PIPA in their current form — but I sure do support their aim. I consider them works in progress — very necessary works in progress. In the meantime those of you who told me what a corporate lackey I was over this might want to reconsider lighting up my Facebook page about a bill you haven’t even bothered to read. As far as I’m concerned you are Wikipedia’s version of the Tea Party. Tu es no saber!
But I invite, encourage even, my Internet competitors to black out their sites more often. Our Web traffic saw a huge jump that day that has remained in place ever since. I’m down with that.

Award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth, of Pocatello, is a senior lecturer in physics at Idaho State University and the publisher of motorcyclejazz.com.

Social media add new dimension

By Martin Hackworth

It’s a probably just a little early to be guessing as to what will eventually end up as the invention of the 21st century, but unless we achieve warp drive a little ahead of schedule I’m going to get behind social media online: Facebook, YouTube, Skype and the like. As far as I’m concerned, social media is about the best thing to come around since the invention of sliced whole wheat bread.

I am big into social media. I create Facebook groups for each of my lower-division classes at the University so that students may confab in a relaxed, informal environment. MotorcycleJazz.com and The Tour of Idaho both have extensive, well-subscribed Facebook (and YouTube) pages that serve large communities. Those communities, in turn, have spawned other communities with more narrow interests. It’s amazing to see how these grow. I’ve met folks through social media that I would have never had the opportunity to meet any other way and my life is better for it. The ability to easily and rapidly share photos, video, messages and other information has done more to build and strengthen communities than anything since the decline of the sidewalk and front porch. As far as I’m concerned social media is like one long home town street that goes all the way around the world.

One of the best features of Web-based social media is the ability to stay connected with those far away. I’ve managed to keep up with service members in Iraq and Afghanistan, family members all over the country and friends scattered to the four corners of the Earth. I’ve used Skype and Facebook to close gulfs of time and distance over events ranging from births to deaths and about everything between. The ability to communicate instantly and easily has made social media both ubiquitous and indispensible in my life (the Android phone hasn’t hurt the cause either). In a few cases the last thing that I have from someone isn’t a photo or a letter but a private message or a photo/video comment. I’m looking at one of those right now from Colton Aiken. Rest well, friend.

Alas, even paradise probably has a few harps out of tune and so it is with social media as well. I’ve noticed that there’s an awful lot of jawboning and snarky talk that occurs freely online at a safe distance of many miles that probably would go down differently at a more intimate distance of a few feet. My friends and I refer to that as “sixty mile smack” which is generally more, shall we say, audacious, than the much less common six inch smack. All of the forums, pages and blogs I manage online are moderated and as a member you’ll be polite (or absent that, at least funny) or you’ll be gone. Your first amendment right to free speech may apply in a public square but it does not apply in any forum where my colleagues and I determine you to be more of a pain-in-the-butt than you are worth. Be seeing you.

I am particularly emphatic on that last point concerning my personal Facebook page – something I set up for the express purpose of relaxed, friendly communication with family and friends. This page is set up so that just about anyone can subscribe and view updates (though I’m a little frightened as to why anyone would be interested in that if I don’t actually know them) but is fully available only to those with whom I have some actual connection beyond casual. If you are a friend on my personal page it’s because you are an actual friend (generally someone I’ve known for many years), someone I like and respect professionally, or occasionally someone I added for other reasons (generally temporary in nature) and I just haven’t gotten around to you in my routine list maintenance yet. I have no desire for thousands of Facebook friends that either I don’t know well or don’t know from Adam. I much prefer a quieter, more intimate personal space.

Along that line, though it pains me (honest and no lie) to break the news to you I don’t actually care what you thought of my last Facebook post if you are not part of the posse. This is, I assure you, nothing personal, it’s a matter of Ch’i! I receive, I assure you, more than enough unfiltered feedback from the world in the course of my daily routine. So I employ some bodacious filters with very high signal to noise ratios in my personal space. That’s just the way that I roll and you can like it or not as you please. And no, I won’t explain to you why I am ignoring your friend request. If you have to ask…

Award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth, of Pocatello, is a senior lecturer in physics at Idaho State University and the publisher of motorcyclejazz.com.

Let’s hope Kodak gets mojo back

By Martin Hackworth

Eastman Kodak, the 132 year old company that invented a line of products which allowed the 20th century the first to be completely chronicled through photography, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy last Thursday. Kodak, a once formidable juggernaut that established itself by creating the standards in analog film and paper stock, had fought for more than a decade to adapt to an increasingly digital world. Unfortunately Kodak has been know for the past decade more for filing patent infringement lawsuits than for any of the technical innovation that it once stood for. This must not be the greatest 21st century business model for them as Kodak has produced an annual profit only once since the turn of the century.

I am, nonetheless, pulling for Kodak to emerge from Chapter 11 and for them to get some of their old mojo back. I’m very sentimental when it comes to the Eastman Kodak Corporation because just like the 20th century itself a lot of pieces of my own life are preserved in 35mm color images. Among all of the wonders made possible by Kodak nothing stands out more than Kodachrome color film. Though Kodachrome was first introduced in the 1930’s, it wasn’t until the introduction of Kodachrome 64 slide film (and the K-14 development process) in 1974 that color photography really began to pop.

I have a large selection of black and white snapshots from years past in various albums and shoeboxes. Among them is a century and a half old photograph of my great, great grandfather coming home from the civil war. Even though this is a historically important image it just doesn’t convey much, in a visceral sense anyway, to me. When it’s Ansel Adams or Ralph Eugene Meatyard creating a black and white image for artistic purposes I’m down with the plan. But black and white snapshots generally just don’t do much for me – there’s too much missing from a world lit with color. Trying to experience or even to relive a moment captured in a black and white 3 x 5 image is like trying to get your golden retriever to read the directions on a can of dog food for himself, it never works, but not for lack of trying.

Anyone born before 1960 with an interest in photography will probably remember the moment they first laid eyes on a Kodachrome 64 image. Not only were the colors (especially the reds and greens) bold and rich and beautiful, but the film itself was thin enough that it didn’t scatter a lot of light. This resulted in images that were sharper and more dramatic than what had previously been the available in mass-produced developing and printing.

Kodachrome 64 was what made it possible for me to image the world and my journey through it in a way that was poignant and meaningful. And I’m not the only one. Among the most well known images ever produced was Steve McCurry’s 1984 photograph of a young Afghan girl at a refugee camp in Pakistan that appeared on the cover of National Geographic.  If a normal picture is worth a thousand words then this one is an entire novel. In terms of creating a stunning visual image for the ages I’ll put McCurry’s Kodachrome 64 photograph up against Alfred Stieglitz’s black and white masterpiece “Georgia O’Keeffe – Hands” any day of the week and twice on Sunday. And all of you black and white zone system snobs can plant one right on my rosy red bum.

My family and I have been going through my old collection of Kodachrome 64 slides to see which ones we’d like to digitize. Although the least stable dyes in Kodachrome 64 stock (the yellows) are estimated to have a shelf life of over well over 100 years, our 35mm Carousel slide projector is about as useful as a View-Master in the modern age of digital frames and Facebook. As we’ve sorted through hundreds of images, some approaching 40 years old, I am blown away by their freshness. Every time I get into a new box it’s as if I had just stepped back several decades and was opening the mailer from Kodak for the first time – a time when the image effortlessly conjured not only the arrangement of light, but the sounds, the smells and the emotions that existed the instant the shutter opened and closed.

So thank you Kodak. For a few moments at a time this weekend I get to remember exactly how scared I was at key moments in my climbing career, how carefully I dressed to impress a girl in high school and how beautiful I thought the sunset was over western Kansas one long ago August evening. Now, how about getting back to work giving us the next Kodachrome 64?

Award-winning columnist Martin Hackworth, of Pocatello, is a senior lecturer in physics at Idaho State University and the publisher of motorcyclejazz.com.

How do dogs become family?

By Michael H. O’Donnell

We’re all going to die. And that’s not so bad. It’s the painfully sharp fact that people and the pets we come to love face the same fate that shatters our mortal bubble of comfort.
We deflate inside.
Tears fill the void for a while, but the space remains forever empty. Only pet owners can fully understand why this powerful vacuum transcends the loss of human life to that of animals and leaves a missing warm spot on the sofa of our souls.
Pet owners like my sisters know. Beth and Rosanne shared space with each other and a four-legged mop of a Silky Terrier named Irish for 17 years. Arthritic and suffering from a host of ailments that took the fun out of living, Irish stopped being a friend and became a dilemma. My older sister was forced to make a decision last week. Live in denial and ignore the pain or free the puppy lost inside that little dog.
With tears in her eyes and a heart heavier than the furry family member she took into her arms for the last time, my sister Beth did the right thing. That last trip to the vet is one all pet owners fear and most must take.
Deep down, I believe that’s why my mother never allowed us to adopt a dog—at least not long enough to love one.
When I was a little scruff and Beth was a baby, my parents did succumb to a momentary lapse in the “no dog” rule. We lived in the Michigan countryside and he was a beagle. There was lots of space for that black and tan barking machine to roam. He chose to roam into my mom’s closet.
There’s something magic in women’s shoes that draws a puppy. It is my firm belief you could stack a fence made of rawhide chew toys and milk-bones six feet high and a puppy would burrow under it or climb over it just to snack on a pair of high heels.
One day that young beagle slobbered on one instep too many and was banished from the family forever. We gave him to a farmer down the road and let his wife deal with tooth marks on her pumps. Actually, according to legend, that beagle became an “outside dog.” He roamed the fence lines of life until a steel trap robbed him of a limb, but continued to hunt for stray shoes for many years.
After we moved to Colorado, another pooch tried to nose his way into our family. This fine Heinz 57 just showed up, lean and looking for a meal. Before mom could nix any feeding operations, a bowl of scraps sealed his presence. But, before any real bonding could take place, that mutt was relocated to a farm somewhere out of “Here boy!” range.
My mom finally began to soften her stance against pets when we obtained our first parakeet which is French for “dead on arrival.” We tried two of the winged weaklings before the cage was relegated to the tool shed. It’s hard to get attached to something confined to a wire prison with a death sentence hanging over its head.
Finally we acquired a cat, thanks to the expert negotiating skills of a neighbor. It remained a mystery what promises were made at the other end, but Snowball the white tomcat became our pet—for a while. Male kittens are terrific until their instinct to roam sets in. When it came to a budgetary choice between a fix job at the veterinarian or breakfast cereal for a month, the tom maintained his swagger.
One day he vanished into the night to pitch woo and never came back. My dad and I suspect he fell victim to the dangers inherent with romance in the open sage of Colorado. Not all coyotes are as intellectually impaired as Wile E.
There would be another cat enter the family domain, but Sir Charles was never really ours. We inherited him from a grandmother who lost patience. There are many adjectives to describe this cat’s demeanor, but loving wasn’t one of them.
It wasn’t until my sister Beth left the nest and ended up caring for our younger sister, who had fallen victim to a crippling auto accident, that a dog was truly elevated to family status. That dog was Irish.
Brought home as a puppy, she became an equal partner with my sisters. She became their friend and terribly undersized defender. Irish could never forget her name because she heard it loud and often around that home. The name was sometimes wrapped in affection and other times swung like a hammer.
Not hearing it spoken or shouted will leave a strange silence in their world – broken only by the yip of a new pup.

Michael H. O’Donnell is assistant managing editor of the Idaho State Journal.

This is a war and attacks are justified

Idaho State Journal Editorial

Has al-Qaida been weakened by the killing of American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki in a drone attack in Yemen? President Obama says that is so, and that the deaths of al-Awlaki and another American, Samir Khan, “are a devastating double blow to al-Qaida’s most dangerous franchise.”
Since the pair had made no secret of their hatred for this country and their attempts to inflict terror disasters on American citizens, few would side with the civil liberties groups who have questioned the government’s authority to kill an American without trial. That happens in wars.
Obama was specific in outlining al-Awlaki’s involvement in planning and directing attempts to murder Americans. “He directed the failed attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009. He directed the failed attempt to blow up U.S. cargo planes in 2010. And he repeatedly called on individuals in the United States and around the globe to kill innocent men, women and children to advance a murderous agenda.”
So, the chickens have come home to roost, as they say.
For Americans discouraged by 10 years of war against terrorists, it’s heartening to see the tide turning at least slightly. For instance, al-Awlaki was killed by the CIA working in concert with the same U.S. military unit that got Osama bin Laden in May. And there is good news that al-Qaida’s affiliate in Iraq has been severely weakened by a money squeeze, internal squabbling, a shortage of volunteer suicide bombers and more effective Iraqi efforts to snatch the terror group’s foreign recruits when they slip across the border from Syria.
The Associated Press reports that Maj. Gen. David Perkins, commander of the Army’s 4th Infantry Division and of all U.S. forces in northern Iraq, said al-Qaida has suffered a “dramatic decrease” in local and foreign fundraising, to the point where members of the group are fighting over shrinking pieces of the financial pie.
“They’re resorting to what I would call extortion, black marketing, robbery of jewelry stores, things like that,” Perkins told reporters. “And it’s devolving more into almost gang mafia-type activities. And they are starting to, in some instances, turn against each other, which from our point of view is a good sign.”
Here’s the best news, however.
Most of the 5,000 U.S. troops based in northern Iraq will be gone by the end of October. All U.S. forces are to leave by the end of the year. In Yemen, the U.S. has made a good start toward what President Obama promises will be a vigorous campaign to prevent terrorists from finding a haven — anywhere.

Burying a friend in ink

By Michael H. O’Donnell

You can expect a lot of the unexpected the first day you show up for a
new job. Read more…

Need for community heart to heart

By Roger Bray The growth of Bannock County and an even greater increase in the use of our ambulances persistently places us all in perilous circumstances. The handwriting on the wall is clear. We are on the verge of tragic outcomes because we are overextending our emergency coverage for ambulances and correspondingly for the Pocatello Fire Department. We are at the breaking point with no immediate resolution available. State law puts this issue in the hands of the voters to address the needs of their ambulance district. A positive vote in November means that in December 2012 those taxes are first collected and available for use. I present the most important fact. Frequently, there are no ambulances available for an immediate response to your medical emergency, which extends to a delayed emergency response time for the Pocatello Fire Department.

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Marsh Valley School District needs to revisit issue of transportation to athletic events

By Kelley Packer My teen-age son and three of his teen-age friends were in a rollover accident Tuesday afternoon, around 2 p.m. just south of Swan Lake. Many would ask what they were doing out of school at that time, but parents in the Marsh Valley School District would likely assume, and they’d be right, that they were on their way to an athletic event for the high school. Two years ago, the school district decided to quit providing transportation for athletic events as a way of trying to save the school district money. So, students and parents now have the responsibility of making sure those that are participating in school sports are to all of their games on time, without the aid of school resources.

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Professionalism not good fit with today’s society

By Martin Hackworth I’ve always thought that one of the best compliments that one could receive is to be referred to as a “pro.” The concept of professionalism means a lot and it pains me to see it evaporating alongside good manners, tact, decorum, selflessness, courage, wisdom and a lot of other qualities that used to be a lot more common than they are now.

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