Louie

Jen, Rudy and I adopted a new dog named Louie the day after New Years. Louie is super cute, and he and Rudy have become best buddies.

 Louie, Brian and Rudy the night they adopted Louie

Jen and I had been talking about getting another dog for several months, especially since we moved to our new apartment in Salt Lake City. Rudy became really depressed since we moved because he didn’t have his giant field or the social pack of dogs he was used to. He was lonely and unhappy, even though we would take him on lots of fun doggie walks and adventures.

We decided that the end of Christmas break was the best time to get another dog. We got him from the Utah Animal Adoption Center, a no-kill center in North Salt Lake. We brought Rudy with us to pick out “his” new dog at the shelter. They became best friends right away, and Louie came right up to us to snuggle. We fell in love with him and took him home.

 Louie the night we adopted him.

Louie is extremely obedient. He will do anything we ask, including taking baths. He is very eager to please and wants to keep us happy. He can play Frisbee for hours on end. He loves to snuggle, as well as wrestle with Rudy for hours.

 Louie and Rudy snuggling.

Frisbee!

Louie’s new trick is he realized that we control the dog through their collars, so he tries to steal Rudy’s all of the time. While wrestling, Louie can grab the collar in his mouth and yank it off, which makes Rudy look really embarrassed. It’s hilarious stuff.

Louie has a very thin fur coat, so he doesn’t shed very much. However, this thin coat makes him shiver all of the time when he is outside. We had to get him some sweaters and coats to keep him from freezing on walks. Jen and I are both a little embarrassed about this, but Louie loves wearing stylish sweaters.

One last note about Louie is that his primary love language is words of affirmation. He loves to be told that he’s a good boy, which he is!

Good Dogs: Rudy and Louie

Terrorist Dogs and Other Conspiracies

As I’ve said before, being a moderate makes me freak out when I see extremism on either the far right or far left. Unfortunately, living in Utah I see more of the far right being displayed. Here are some humorous examples of far right extremism from the Colbert Report:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Middle Eastern Dogs
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care reform

Let’s be honest…I’m not surprised about dogs being terrorists. Rudy used to be pretty destructive when Jen first found him and took him off the street. What is shocking is how people respond to the Census:

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
United States Census 2010
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Health Care reform

Tonight is when the Utah Democrats and Republicans will be holding their around the state. You can get more information about the meetings here.

You can also find out what district you are in here.

With the recent passage of the Health Care Reform Bill, I'm sure tomorrow night will be a pretty wild and cacophonous night at the Republican caucus meetings. I plan to go to my area's Republican meeting to try to be the moderate voice of reason in the room. I'm really concerned about these extremely right-wing tea partiers trying to further push their radical agenda on the state, and want to do all that I can to temper the insanity.

Please try to attend your local meeting to try to talk some sense into these wackos! PLEASE!

And as if we needed another reason to show up, Super Dell is running for governor again!  We have to stop this guy!

Simulation Fallout

The Mayor of Baltimore responding to a terrorist attack.

So last Friday while minding my own business as the mayor of Baltimore, some crazy terrorist blew up a dirty bomb in the Port area, which rendered 3 miles of the city uninhabitable for 1,000 years. Oy…that made for a long day. I survived the counterterrorism simulation, but unfortunately, several thousand people in Baltimore didn’t.

The Deseret News and ABC News  both covered the story. Please note, ABC reported it incorrectly by saying that it was an aircraft that crashed into the port, and not a dirty bomb, which I learned makes for a big difference when you start having all of your first responders die from radiation poisoning. Oiaue!

All in all, it was a fun, stressful and crazy day fighting terrorists!

Daniel and Jennifer’s Wedding

To catch up on some recent family news, my little bother Daniel got married on December 29th in the Bountiful temple. Jen and I were so happy for them and were really glad to be there for their sealing. Here are some pictures we took that day:

Daniel and Jennifer with Jennifer's parents at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Daniel and Jennfier with my parents and Uncle Mark and Aunt Dixie Tanner.

The Black and Tanner families at the Old Spaghetti Factory the night before the wedding.

Brian and Jennifer Tanner at the Old Spaghetti Factory.

Caught smooching!

Dean Howard, a man Daniel worked with on his mission in Texas, came out to Utah for the wedding and stayed with Jen and I. Rudy quickly claimed him as his friend.

Waiting outside the Bountiful Temple in the snow for the Bridegroom and Bride to appear.

When you're this hot, how can you notice the cold?

Still waiting in the snow...maybe they snuck out the back door?

There they are!

Tada! Mr. and Mrs. Tanner!

Bling!



Still kissing.

The New Tanner Family.

Some vandals threw streamers and painted Daniel's car that night at a secret, undisclosed location.

Plastic Beach

Tomorrow the new Gorillaz album Plastic Beach comes out, which I’m really excited for. Gorillaz creator, Damon Albarn, from the British band Blur (most famous for Song #2 or “Wahoo!”), originally came up with the concept of an virtual rock band in response to his disgust with modern music. At the height of the consolidation of the radio/music industry and the bland bubblegum reigns of Brittney Spears and N’Sync, Albarn wanted to make an album showing just how creative music should be.

The animated video for Clint Eastwood was a huge hit, for good reason. Blending hip-hop and alternative rock, it was a breath of fresh, independent air.

 

The other songs from their debut album, Gorillaz,  featured a diverse blend of styles and lyrics in English, Spanish and Japanese. One of my other favorite videos from the album was for 19-2000:

 

The Grammy award winning second album, Demon Days, was produced by Dangermouse, also famous for the Beatles/Jay-Z mashup “The Grey Album” and Gnarls Barkley. The album was a huge success, and the track “Feel Good Inc.” featuring De La Soul became synonymous with Apple’s iPod through extensive advertising.

By the way, Dangermouse’s video for Encore with Ringo scratching and John Lennon break dancing is simply fantastic. 

 

Gorillaz’s newest video Stylo, features Mos Def, Bobby Womack, and Bruce Willis.

Political Protest

Rudy "expressing his grievances" against the Utah State Legislature

Everyday, I get more and more upset at the Utah State Legislature. Being politically moderate, I get really disturbed by extreme legislation on either the far right or the far left. Here are some of the disturbing proposals from the last few weeks:

• Ending affirmative action by amending the state Constitution.
• Honoring a the inventor of a semi-automatic pistol with a state holiday that would coincide with Martin Luther King Day, who worked for peace and was murdered by guns. When asked to justify celebrating guns on the same day as one honoring a Nobel Peace Prize winner who was murdered by an assassin, the Senate Majority leader said “Guns keep peace.”
• A bill to prevent the Federal government from regulating guns manufactured in Utah, even though Utah already has the least strict gun laws in the nation.
• Advertising on the sides of school buses.
• A bill to order the Federal EPA to stop regulating carbon-dioxide gasses until climate change is proven.
• Denying instate tuition at state universities and colleges to undocumented aliens who graduate from Utah high schools.
• Preemptive legislation to allow Utah to be immune from any Federally mandated health care reform bill.

The purpose of many of these laws is to give messages to the Federal Government and public. Having spent some time this year in law school studying Utah laws, I’ve come to realize that message laws generally end up creating contradictions in the legal code. They are generally short-sighted and do not consider the long term ramifications of their effects. Rather, message laws help politicians win points with special interest groups (i.e. NRA) and make for good bullet points on a campaign brochure (i.e. “I voted to keep your family same from the mean nasty Federal Government).

Many, including our governor, are concerned about these message laws.

The Patrick Henry Caucus is behind many of these message laws. They are an ultra-conservative group who interpret the 10th Amendment very broadly in wanting to minimize the role of the Federal Government. Their message is akin to southerners in the pre-Civil War South who wanted the Feds to get off their back about slavery. The issue of Federal v. State sovereignty was was really caused the Civil War, not slavery by itself. The Caucus largely ignores two centuries of Supreme Court case law interpreting the Constitution, and instead want to impose their interpretation on the country. None of the Caucus members attended law school.

Rep. Chris Herrod, a member of the Caucus, was the sponsor of SB81 from a few years ago, is also advocating for the state to seize federal lands in southern Utah. Near the end of President Clinton’s presidency, he declared this area in Southern Utah a national monument. This upset developers (i.e. Big Coal Companies) who wanted to mine the area, and they have resented it ever since.
From the Salt Lake Tribune:

“Our schoolchildren have been robbed," said Rep. Chris Herrod, R-Provo.
Herrod asserts that, despite Supreme Court rulings to the contrary, the state is "sovereign" over lands in its boundaries and has power to reclaim those that the federal government did not acquire with state approval. He concedes that Utah gave up claims to federal lands at statehood, but said the federal government has broken its pledge to put the state on "equal footing" with other states by keeping more than two-thirds of the state in federal ownership….

Rep. Kraig Powell, R-Heber City, said the potential advantages of a court victory are worth the risk of defeat and loss of legal fees.
"We may very well be termed crazy somewhere by constitutional attorneys around the country," he said, "but every argument that was once asserted by someone had to be started by someone."

When they say “Constitutional attorneys”, I’m afraid that’s going to include the Supreme Court Justices and any other judge who would hear this case. I doubt they would even accept the appeal.
From the Deseret News:

“"Most of the land is not in production. We cannot tax it and it cannot provide for us," Herrod said. "But the rewards of going after that land are in the billions and billions. I am not a gambling man, but if someone were to say I could put a quarter in a machine and had a chance to get a billion dollars, I would put that quarter in.”

With our state facing a very serious budget crisis this year, this is not the time to put quarters in any gambling machine.

Thankfully, I’m not the only one who thinks this and other message laws would be a waste of time or money.

Now, I must admit that not everything that has been proposed has been terrible. For example, Rep. King from Salt Lake City who wanted to raise income taxes by 1% for those who earn over $250,000 to help raise $100,000 million for public education next year. However, being a Senate Democrat plan to raise taxes, the proposal was quickly defeated by the right wing.

My message to the legislature is this: Radical Right Wing Utah Legislators...Please stop wasting time with weird, 1855-style State Sovereignty message laws to the Federal Government, and actually try to fix some of the problems this State is facing. I understand it is important to you to show the Feds their powers are not unlimited, but state sovereignty is only effective if you use the power to help the people.

When do people suffer more: when the Feds have too much power, or when the States refuse to provide public services for their citizens?

Update: Here's a really awesome political cartoon on this subject by local cartoonist, Pat Bagley: