There are some formations that any sports fan will recognize. The bunt situation, the goal line stand, the fourth and inches play, and the empty net when the goalie gets pulled.

In politics there is one formation that Republicans instinctively utilize to insure defeat in the face of certain victory. My friends and I refer to this formation as the “circular firing squad.” This is when conservative republicans behave irrationally and decide to sacrifice one of their own that might be pulling ahead of the others.

This week the Republican Assembly of Kern County (R.A.K.C.) executed this maneuver on Ken Mettler. Mettler is a past president of RAKC and recently resigned as President of the statewide California Republican Assembly to pursue an opportunity to run for State Assembly in the 32nd District.

The RAKC decided to go public with their accusations without confronting Mettler and giving him the opportunity to respond. To summarize their charges against Mettler, they accuse Mettler of spending almost $500 over a ten month period (see chart below) without authorization by the Executive Board. Additionally, they charge him with “disposed of all of the historical documents of R.A.K.C./B.R.A. from before the time of his presidency.”

- Date --- Amount Charge against Ken Mettler
01/30/2009 $174.25 Investigate possible campaign rival
02/09/2009 $22.25 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/03/2009 $56.03 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/04/2009 $63.93 Investigate possible campaign rival
11/05/2009 $83.33 Investigate background on Rob Badewitz
February09 $100.00 New bank account
-------Total $499.79

RAKC has taken or said they will take the following actions to address their grievances with Mr. Mettler.
• Hold vote to expel Ken Mettler from RAKC. (Mettler is currently on board of RAKC as immediate past president).
• Postpone indefinitely the local endorsing convention that was called for April 5th.
• Turn over this matter to BPD (Bakersfield Police Department?) and the FPPC (Fair Political Practices Commission)

My first thought upon reading the release from the Republican Assembly of Kern County was the Scriptural admonition to settle things before you get to the judge and if you find fault in your brother go to him first and try to get things resolved. The fact that Martin Bertram immediately goes public with accusations without trying to resolve the situation within RAKC does not pass the “smell test.” That RAKC Board members during this period were not even interviewed by Mr. Bertram before concluding his findings is both sloppy and shameful.

Mr. Bertram is embarrassing himself, his organization, the CRA and the California Republican Party by his actions. This is just as stupid as Steve Poizner complaining to California Attorney General Jerry Brown to investigate Meg Whitman because she tried to maneuver him out of the race.

In our local central committee we discovered that a former chairman has embezzled over $60,000 and it was decided not to go to the authorities because of the harm it would do to the organization and the Republican Party. Bertram is upset about $500 being spent in ten months? I’m sure Mr. Mettler has receipts for thousands of dollars that came out of his pocket as President of RAKC and CRA that he never sought reimbursement for from either group. Not to mention the wages that he forfeited because he was working for the Party.

If Mr. Bertram was dealing realistically in this matter, the most he should have done is demanded that Ken Mettler give RAKC a check for $500 and then implement a policy to prevent this from happening any more.

I have been a treasurer in many organizations. I always keep copies of all checks that I deposit and match any check that I write with a receipt when I issue the check. My experience is that it is usually others in the group that try to skirt the rules. Sometimes the only documentation that I get is an email requesting that a check be given to a person for a specific purpose. Collecting receipts after the fact is difficult. When the treasurer is lax then things can get out of hand. Clearly this is the case here.

First, concerning records of the club, per bylaws provided by Mr. Bertram, the club Secretary is in charge of archiving club documents not the president.

Concerning the endorsing convention, Bertram does not have the power as a unit president to cancel an endorsing convention because he lacks the power to call it in the first place. This is the right of a CRA vice-president or Senate District Director. Only if all of AD 32 falls within the territory of RAKC could a single CRA chapter decide an endorsement. This is not the case in AD 32. Part of AD 32 is in San Bernardino County and there is a second CRA chapter in Kern County.

As for a call to remove Mettler from RAKC, the vote threshold to do this is a super majority (3/4 of members present). I doubt that Bertram will get the votes to do this.

It is my experience that the CRA State Board is reluctant to act against a member or local chapter in much more clear-cut and blatant violations of ethics and bylaws than those alleged by Mr. Bertram in this case.

Clearly the censure of Ken Mettler by the Republican Assembly of Kern County is meant to tarnish the reputation of Mettler and hurt his chances in the June primary. No other conclusion can be drawn from the way this was handled.  Mr. Bertram, the fact you even emailed me about this is proof that I am right.

Sincerely,

William

CRA State Board member
Treasurer, Cosumnes RA
Sacramento County Republican Party

A Picture Worth 3,000 Words

Today, the powers that be decreed that any claims for travel reimbursement in the Department of Corrections--that were submitted within a certain period of time--will be approved with no verification.  Unless a CalATERS claim fails the “smell test” of an auditor the claim will be approved and any supporting documents will be audited at a later date. This is supposed to be implemented on a department-wide basis.

This initiative seems to originate from the State Controller’s Office as a way to fix the fact that the CalATERS program cannot handle the load or number of users from CDCR. The number of man-hours wasted on this program would likely pay for one that could do the job.

"Schwarzenegger says last year’s $862 billion stimulus plan is “terrific” and has created 150,000 jobs in his state..."--AP 2/21/2010

Hey Arnold, the stimulus bill has created no new jobs in the private sector in California and we all know it. If you really want to create jobs in California, turn on the water to the Central Valley farmers and tell the federal judge to go pound sand.

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is implementing a hard freeze on spending as a temporary step to address a significant anticipated fiscal shortfall. The following areas are immediately frozen:
• Hiring
• Training
• Travel
• Contracts for discretionary services
• Purchases
• Overtime for Administration

“The hard freeze will remain in effect until such time as the Department is able to prioritize and then establish a system for authorizing expenditures.”

Union front groups have started running ads against Meg Whitman because she is being supported by big business and she opposes global warming.

The unions have 40 million to spend tampering with the Republican primary and their two biggest complaints about Meg are those! If that is their best shot, then Meg has little to fear from the Left. What a waste of money. Any business that supports a Democrat deserves to fail. Any rational person that supports AB 32 should not be allowed to vote because their IQ is negative.

The union motto should be Democrats: same old playbook, same old politicians, same old results.

Ok who is older? Jerry Brown or Robert Byrd

Today the following email greeted me. If you want to know the history just Google Barbara’s name. This is too rich!

I kid you not.  The Republicans of River City (RRC) have endorsed, and I can hardly believe it myself, Barbara Alby for Board of Equalization.  Please see the forwarded press release below from none other than Carl Burton.

I have heard of politics making for strange bedfellows, but Carl Burton and the RRC endorsing Barbara Alby for anything is beyond belief.  This is either one of the greatest practical jokes of all time or I have entered the Twilight Zone.

UNBELIEVABLE!

Name Withheld

Barbara Ably endorsed by RRC for BOE

SACRAMENTO--- The members of Republicans of River City (RRC) unanimously endorsed Barbara Ably to replace Bill Leonard on the Board of Equalization (BOE)at their regular monthly meeting on Tuesday, October 20.

Bill Leonard currently represents BOE District 2 but is prevented from running for reelection due to term limits. Bill endorsed Barbara to replace him on the board. Barbara has served with distinction as Bill’s Chief of Staff for the past seven years.

The members of Republicans of River City recognize that there are four outstanding Republican candidates for Bill Leonard’s BOE office. However, because of her experience as Chief of Staff, Barbara is viewed by RRC members as the outstanding candidate for this office.

In addition to her experience as Bill Leonard’s Chief of Staff, Barbara served in the California State Assembly with distinction.  Finally, Barbara served as one two California representatives on the Republican National Committee. There she was elected to several positions and made California’s voice heard.

Carl Burton, President of Republicans of River City said “the volunteer club is one of the largest Republican clubs in Sacramento County and Northern California and has a long history of endorsing candidates who later win in the primary election and go on to win their office in the general election.”

For those that don’t know the history of the love between Barbara Alby and the Republicans of River City, this would be much like the Palestinians nominating Israel for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Teddy “The Swimmer” Kennedy finally passed away yesterday.

He was a symbol of all that is wrong in modern American politics. He was one of the more successful Machiavellian liberals. Kennedy often treated the US Constitution as a suicide pact. He never met a terrorist or a communist that didn’t occupy a warm place in his heart. He perverted the values of America to expand the welfare state and erode the rights to own private property. He worked to thwart a parents’ ability to pass their values to their children. He spent his whole career trying to destroy the values the made our country great. He was always a defender of murdering the unborn and in his later years he worked to establish a national framework for euthanizing the infirm and aged. Kennedy hated Truth and Justice and anyone that stood for those values. He made a mockery of his faith and his family. He was at least guilty of manslaughter and to many he was a murder that got away with it.

His legacy is one of moral failure both personally and in his legislation record. Any success touted by Kennedy was a diminishment of the American people. His gains were our losses. How a man who so totally embraced wickedness could be called a role model for anyone is a commentary for just how corrupt we have become as a people. The only sad part in all this is that I am sure the people of Massachusetts will give the rest of the country another Senator just as worthless as Kennedy.

I have a mental picture of Kennedy experiencing his eternal reward and begging Father Abraham to let Mary Jo give him one cup of water to ease his suffering. Enjoy reaping what you sewed Uncle Teddy ‘cause you worked hard for it!

I agreed to upgrade a laptop for my wife’s friend last week. I have Acronis True Image Software and a USB connected external hard drive so I figure this is easy money right? NOT!

I took the laptop home and went to work. The laptop is a Dell that is about three or four years old. I made a full backup of the drive, inserted to 160 GB drive that replaced to 36GB drive. My first indication that all was not well was when the system was booted via the Acronis disk and the software could not see my removable drive. I had to copy the image file from my removal drive to my desktop computer. Only in one of the Public folders in my Vista machine could the backup file be seen via the Network option on the Acronis software. After the backup was completed, I booted up the computer and was greeted by a 36 GB hard drive that should have been 160 GB!

After much research I found that I was the victim of proprietary and hidden software that Dell stuck on their hard drive! I was not a happy camper. Acronis has an article on their support website called “HPA Makes the Cloned Drive Display Wrong Capacity.” While this is great information, it does nothing to fix my problem.

Most of the solutions that I found on the Internet were dangerous and/or dubious. One family of solutions involved using the Windows Repair Console. The owner of the laptop could not provide the master Administrative password so I was stuck and could not use most solutions. For those not yet familiar with this problem, when Windows is first installed it prompts you for a password. Whatever you type will be the only password that you can use three years from now to access the utilities on your Windows installation CD. Otherwise you get to wipe your hard drive and reinstall everything in your computer. Refer to http://www.goodells.net/dellrestore/hpa-issues.htm

So what I knew at this point is that any solution involves fixing the Master Boot Record (MBR) on the laptop. The other part of the solution involved killing the HPA software that made my new hard drive exactly the same capacity as the old drive. Once this size change is made on the drive, both the BIOS and the Windows installation program see the drive capacity as being the same as the old drive. You can even delete the partition and reformat and the new disk will still be the same size as the old drive!

Some Internet solutions say you must find a hexadecimal editor and edit the MBR on original disk. If you do this and screw-up you just lost all the data and you know that the owner of the laptop has never made a backup CD of all her vacation photos from her trip to Europe last year. After editing the MBR then they say make your backup and restore on the new disk. Yeah, Sure!

So the Master Boot Record must be killed, fixed, replaced or otherwise deal with to fix the computer. Then the drive size must be repaired. To repair the drive the only option that seemed to work was from Hitachi. Download the Feature Tool from this page. Get the ISO image file and make a CD. The program is bootable and simple to run. I will tell you when to use the disk in a moment.

The Hitachi tool will let the computer see the whole drive but what then? I found the answer on this discussion thread. http://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?s=984536e28c3c7ee064a0e7d6e054dc57&t=167401&page=2 The solutions proposed on this page mostly don’t work but there is a nugget in their that rang a loud bell in my mind. To get the space back on the drive one of the postings references Acronis Secure Zone. They said create a Secure Zone of any size and then delete it and pick the option to allocate any unused space to the partition that you select.

What I’m telling you now took me five nights staying up past one in the morning to figure out. Yeah much of the time was waiting for my Vista computer to send restore files via my home network to the laptop. I did 12 to 18 restorations during the period to find a fix.

I kept refining my attempts and this is what finally worked:

1. I restored everything from the old drive to the new one: C:\, the MBR and the two hidden partitions that Acronis found on the Dell laptop. Elapse time for this step about three hours.

2. Then I got my old DOS 6.22 bootable CD with Windows 3.11 and Norton Desktop on it and booted up the computer. Any bootable DOS disk that you can get will work as long as FDISK is on the disk. At the DOS prompt type A:\ FDISK /MBR and press enter.
(Even though it says A Drive, this command knows to run on the C Drive.) Remove the disk.
Insert the Hitachi disk, reboot computer and start via this CD and then follow instructions to resize the new hard disk.
To restore the drive to its full capacity you need to remove HPA on the target drive:

5. Click on the “Features” menu or press Alt-F keys and select “Change Capacity”;
6. You should see “Manufacturing values” and “Current values” on the appeared window;
7. Click “Options” and choose “Maximum Capacity” from the list. The appropriate value will be automatically entered in the “New Capacity” field;
8. Click OK.
http://www.acronis.com/r/support/en/kb/907/Removing_HPA.txt

At this point if you want to start Windows and look in Disk Management you will see the balance of the drive as unallocated space.
Warning: Don’t delete the other two partitions that you see via Disk Management Console. If you do the computer will not boot because your boot.ini file will then not match your computer configuration.
Elapse time for these steps is about ten minutes.

3. Lastly, get your Acronis CD again and boot the computer. Create a Secure Zone on the unallocated space on the drive. As you go through the process DO NOT SELECT ANY DRIVE OR PARTION. Leave all check boxes empty. Keep going Next. The program will automatically select space on the unallocated portion of the disk. The partition can be any size.

4. After the Secure Zone partition is created restart the wizard for Secure Zone again. This time delete the partition you just made. As you go through the screens you will see one with your disk partitions. Select the one that is labeled as C Drive. On my computer the other two partitions had no drive label. This selection allocates all unused space on the entire drive (not just the Secure Zone you are deleting) to your C drive. This is what you want. Click on Proceed. In fifteen more minutes you are done.

That’s it, enjoy your upgraded machine.

KOVR TV is reporting that

Yesterday, SEIU 1000 President Yvonne Walker told members that the union’s council voted “voted unanimously authorizing the union’s officers to seek member support for concerted actions up to and including a strike to protect our members’ pay, benefits and job security."

What a gift to Governor Schwarzenegger. Now all he has to do is fire the Union when they strike and start over. The Governor could do to SEIU what President Reagan did to the air traffic controllers. This way the Democrats get to whine about the evil Republicans and the Governor gets the most sweeping civil service reform in my lifetime. The Republicans can finally fix the system.

Hey MS Walker, go ahead make my day.

While their buddies at the state capitol are dragging their feet on getting something resembling a balanced budget for California taxpayers, state workers are fretting about the economic hardship that three furlough days a month is inflicting on their lives.

Please note that despite any publicity to the contrary, not one state worker has lost their job! Local and county governments have been lightening their load but the state has yet to do anything meaningful to cut spending. As anyone in the private sector knows, payroll is the largest part of any large organization. Compared to the punishment inflicted on the private sector, the state still thinks it is fun and games as usual. In fact the state is still hiring new employees in July despite the fact that any solution will have to involve reducing payroll.

Now that a third furlough day is added, state workers are being offered courses during working hours on “Coping with the Stress of Economic Uncertainty.” This three hour seminar will “explore healthy strategies for managing stress and increasing resilience during tough economic times.”

What do state workers with cushy jobs and great retirement know about stress?
Try running a business in an environment designed by the state employee’s union and still make a profit; now that IS stress!

Meanwhile Karen Bass is whining like a little baby. Hey Karen, if you don’t like your job quit and give it someone who can get it done.

I realize that California is experiencing a fiscal meltdown. Layoff notices are flying all around the ranks of government workers. In the midst of all this drama would you believe that I got a job with the State of California? No I didn’t land a cushy appointment from the Governor. I started as a lowly paper pusher for the Department of Corrections. Yes the same department that just sent out over 1,500 layoff notices!

I interviewed and was hired a week before the notices were sent out in May. I did part of my pre-employment paperwork in May; most notably the Form I-9. I had to speak with four different people before I could convince them that a passport was the only document required, (I only spent 15 years doing HR and payroll and I know what documents you need to check to hire someone.) The third week after I reported to work, I finally got fingerprinted and filled out the IRS Form W-4.

Interestingly, I signed the form with the oath required by state employees to uphold the constitution twice but neither time did anyone actually administer the oath to me. The second time, the person helping me with the paperwork even signed the portion saying they were a witness to the oath being administered—even though they never administered the oath. Go figure!

The conditions in the office were surprisingly Spartan. There are virtually no office supplies in the supply room. Employees are cannibalizing empty cubicles for supplies. The supply cabinets consist of odd sized Post-it Notes, red pens, typewriter ribbons and tractor feed labels. After trying two calculators that were both broken, I ended-up bringing my calculator from home.

My four year old has a better computer than I was given at the government office. The HP that I run at work is a real dinosaur. It is slow. I’m sure the video memory is shared with RAM which makes it even slower. The user rights are fairly locked-down and I can’t install any programs or run Windows Update. My son’s computer is dual core with 640 MB of video memory. It is very fast running XP Professional.

Every copy machine in the office is either dead or on its last legs. I have difficulty getting my work done when I can’t make copies. I thought about bring in my flatbed scanner just to run copies but I don’t have rights to install any programs.

Contrary to what you would expect in government service, there are no procedure manuals for the work I am currently doing. I am processing paper forms that are then entered on a mainframe program that was probably new in the 1980s. It takes days to process the forms for payment. Partially this is because the people filling out the forms don’t follow directions. All the places they leave blank or incomplete I have to fix. I then have to check all math on the forms. I must then hand-code all entries and write them on the form. I have to check vendor setup in the mainframe and then check for advance payments prior to authorizing A/P entries into the system. After several more tedious steps, I have to do some more antiquated procedures. The copy of the paperwork that is sent to the State Controller for payment is literally held together with string. I had to salvage a three-hole punch and rig it as a two-hole punch to get holes in the paper for the string to go thru!

There is a system that employees can use to do this online and deliver folks like me from as much paperwork but the computerized system is only optional. This system is also obsolete but the new accounting program used by the rest of the state is not yet compatible with what I’m doing.

“And one of the points I want to make is, is that if you actually took the number of Muslim Americans, we’d be one of the largest Muslim countries in the world.” Barack Hussein Obama

Just for the record, I ran the numbers and the United States ranks 56th in the world and has a population of 0.78 percent Muslims. Yeah, less than ONE percent. Hey Barry WTF? Obama is not only lying, it’s a whopper that is reminiscent of Bill Clinton in his heyday.

Niccolò Machiavelli would be proud of Barry’s brazenness. Does this guy really believe this stuff or just think people with towels on their head will believe any BS that is said for their consumption. Obama probably thinks he is giving an olive branch to the Middle East but he is actually double-dog daring them to call his bluff. We will regret his stupidity and arrogance.

Sorry, but can we really afford four years of this fascist buffoon?

I finally was able to hear Steve Poizner speak at our much delayed Reagan-Lincoln Dinner here in Sacramento County. I was most impressed by his presentation and understanding that “it’s the spending stupid” to lift a phrase from another political campaign.

He fielded a number of questions on a variety of issues. The person next to me was anxious to ask Poizner about his position on abortion—a subject that many folks are passionate about. I suggested instead of asking him which label—prolife or prochoice--he wished to apply to himself that this person ask him specifics about issues that Poizner would likely face as governor. I suggested that he ask about taxpayer funding of abortion and conscientious objections by pharmacists and other healthcare providers to being forced to provide “morning after” pills and other such methods of abortion.

The person seated at my table got up after Poizner had completed his Q & A period and went looking for his. This person had stated previously that he would only vote for prolife candidates. He must have been successful with what he was told by Poizner because when he returned to the table, he was filling out an endorsement card.