I woke up!

Rights Boy has finally woken up from a long winter’s nap. And there is still eight inches of snow on the ground outside! When is this global warming thing going to kick in around here?

Today, Rights Boy wants to talk about a couple of his good friends.

First, I’d like to introduce you to Gul DuCurry – pride of the Cardassian Empire.

Don’t mess with Gul DuCurry; if you run into her in a dark alley, slowly turn the other way and run, because she will kick your ass!

Her nickname is Golda Curry, and you can see her demonstrating martial arts and coordinating competitions at celebrAsian, Iowa’s 6th Annual Asian Heritage Festival, on May 17th at the State Capitol East Complex. For more information, check out the site http://www.celebrasian.org/.



Second, please meet Mr. Clean. Mr. Clean hangs out on the Des Moines Register’s web site, http://www.desmoinesregister.com/, commenting on news stories and blogs. He’s sort of a Will Rogers, Mark Twain kind of guy; he can’t come up with anything original himself, but he likes to write short zingers at others.

He is often featured in the ‘Reader Comment’ sidebars in the printed version of the Register, recently on topics including the Drake Men’s basketball team, the endless Iowa winter, Urbandale pool situation, bike trails, and Erin Crawford’s garden.


So, summarizing me and my friends:

Rights Boy blogs here,

Mike Burgher writes letters to Editors, Congress, and anyone else who still accepts his mail,

Mr. Clean writes commentary on the Register’s website,

Gul DuCurry kicks your ass.

Any questions?

Click on the little underlined comment thingy below, and leave me a comment!

Your Papers, Old Man ?? Part 2

Last Friday, Rights Boy’s good friend Mike Burgher opined about a recent traffic safety checkpoint in the Urbandale Register. He lamented about the chipping away at privacy, due process and protection from unreasonable search, all in the name of education or security. He also questioned the purpose and goal of this event as well as the cost, suggesting that it was a huge waste of taxpayer dollars.

Several Register readers agreed with Mike; you can read the letter online with comments by other Des Moines Register readers here.

By some strange coincidence, at 2:30 Friday afternoon, the Central Iowa Traffic Safety Task Force released the results of the checkpoint. You can find a summary of the results here.

After advertising this event as “more about education than enforcement,” the results showed the true purpose - 192 vehicles were stopped and 179 citations were issued. Some of the citations were stunningly trivial, such as not enough air in a tire. If this had been truly about education, they would have issued more warnings instead of citations.

This whole thing has demonstrated to Rights Boy that we are one step closer to a Police State, right here in little ol’ Iowa. What kind of priority is it to pull 40 officers off the street, keep them from doing something useful, dress them up in SWAT gear, and without any probable cause, pull vehicles over and intimidate drivers. Many Register readers weighed in after the results were published. Read those comments here.

What a country! I feel so much safer now.

Where are your papers, old man ??

Rights Boy’s good friend Mike Burgher opines about a recent traffic safety checkpoint in the Urbandale Register this morning. You can read the letter below and online with comments by other Des Moines Register readers here.


On Sept. 21, eastbound traffic on Hickman Road was subjected to a "traffic safety checkpoint" with traffic reduced to one lane, drivers randomly stopped, vehicles inspected, and licenses and registrations examined.

It was pretty high-profile, too - collaboration between the Governor's Traffic Safety Bureau, Central Iowa Traffic Safety Task Force and Urbandale, Clive and Windsor Heights police departments.

While it is quite legal in Iowa to set up a checkpoint and stop citizens without cause, request their papers and inspect and search their cars, it still bothers me. It reminds me how easily today we accept without question the chipping away at privacy, due process, protection from unreasonable search to name a few - all in the name of education or security or terrorists or whatever.What was the purpose or goal of this event and how much did the whole thing cost? What were the expected outcomes and did the event achieve its objectives? Because from my perspective watching, it looked like a huge waste of taxpayer money and took valuable public safety personnel off the streets.

We have a great police department in Urbandale as I'm sure there are in the surrounding communities. But I think it has more important things to do. As far as the Traffic Safety Bureau and Traffic Safety Task Force - if this is what these groups spend their time dreaming up, they should be dismantled and save the taxpayers some money.