Arkansas Blog

Duh.

Major Breaking News:

Halter is a weasel and a whore.

Reflecting on the statements of Bud Jackson, I find it difficult to understand the reason the Lieutenant Governor would be putting so much time, effort, and money into a campaign to raise scholarship money for Arkansas students to go study with kooky professors.

It seems to me that if professors are kooky you'd want to do all in your power to keep our impressionable and vulnerable youth away from them.

Who knows, some of those young people might ultimately become kooky professors themselves. Then where would we be?!

Perhaps we could raise scholarship money by dipping into those excess profits from university presses.

Why doesn't the press report that Bud Jackson DOESN'T EVEN LIVE IN ARKANSAS? He runs a consulting bizness in VIRGINIA...why Halter has to go OUT OF STATE to get a mouthpiece for the lottery is mind-boggling. Click on my name for Jackson's web site.

"political dimension of the South's growing love of lotteries..."

Huh? Only five states don't have the lottery but this is a southern phenomena? Sheese.

Political rhetoric aside, I'll take a voluntary/fun tax over an increase in other taxes anyday, to pay for the needs of AR higher ed.

Note to Gov. Beebe:

Be careful of linking funding to graduation and retention rates. All that does is encourage grade inflation and handing out degrees to half-literate students that barely skated by. As it is, most Jr. High school level students could do well enough in AR universities to get a degree. All this plan will do is emphasize AR state schools as 2nd rate, discouraging the intellectual elite from coming to our state and encouraging the good students in AR to look elsewhere for an education from a decent school.

I'd like to see funding tied to GRE, GMAT, LSAT scores!!!!!

>>Huh? Only five states don't have the lottery but this is a southern phenomena? Sheese.<<

Yippers Cato. Maybe the good professor can lend our friend Max a glass of water while they're gagging on a knat.

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Bud Jackson sounds like, well, quite the jackass -- sorta like the sniveling Jim Harris in the Huckabee admin.

I like the idea of a lottery.

I like Bill Halter.

I've never met Bud, but he could do himself better by stepping away from the computer. His defensive, sarcastic response doesn't cast the best light on him or the Halter team.

Michael Nelson is a pompous ass. He thinks he should be able to sit in his ivory tower and make statements that are not allowed to be challenged. Sounds like a typical liberal professor. "i wrote a book, so i must know something. It was such a great book, that the only publisher willing to print it was my taxpayer funded university press..."

Severus, you don't know what you're talking about. I didn't go to Rhodes, but took at class taught by Nelson during a summer program. He is a nice guy, self-effacing and low-key... anything but a "pompous ass." He isn't some ivory tower hack who think he knows everything. The Clinton School invited him to talk about his book, someone asked him a question about the lottery, and he gave his honest opinion. If you do some quick internet research, you'll see that economists and other experts overwhelmingly agree with his characterization of who buys lottery tickets and who benefits from the lottery's proceeds. And as far as your comment about the publisher goes, that's the way academic books are published. Major publishers rarely even consider publishing a professor's book.

You're the ass who has no idea what he's talking about. Look into things a bit before you post on here, k?

Oh, and one more thing. University presses aren't operated by taxpayer dollars. You are a boob, Severus.

Duh.

Bud Jackson and Mr. Halter seem to be driven by the need for power and ego enhancement. They have pushed too hard and too brazenly. I am sad now that Mr. Halter ran away from the governor's race. It would have been nice for Beebe to have administered a real Arkansas whipping on him. We could be done with him now. Bud Jackson should find the Arkansas line and never return. He is petty, pushy, and pathetic. Mr. Halter will never rise above where he is now. He needs to go back to the other states he left here for in the first place. Judge Mary Whoever should have cut his cord way back when as a carpetbagger. I say no to the lottery, no to Bud Jackson, and HELL no to Mr. Halter. Go away soon, please!

I thought Jackson's comments were funny and for this taxpayer i thought they were accurate. i don't want to pay higher taxes for something like scholarships that can be paid for in a better way. raising taxes isn' the answer for everything!!!!!!

i saw some other noteworthy comments that i want to add to. university presses benefit even if indirectly by taxpayer dollars. i notice people are posting about individuals and aren't addressing the points that the professor and jackson made. i guess i share the sentiment that jackson makes that a professor who seriously advocates raising taxes when we could get that money a better way is "kooky". i would have used a much worse adjective. i sense there are lottery opponents who are just angry becase they can't win based on the lottery's support and there is little substance to attack and that leaves them to attacking individuals withot any reference to the actual issue. i think the people who oppose the lottery are grasping at straws.

I also encourage people to read the professor's actual blog as I just did. look at the comments to his posting while you are there. i was offended by the professor's elitist attitde that he knows better than do other people. i may notbe as smart or as wealthy as he is but i am capable of making my own decisions and dont want that him in his ivory towner telling me what is right and what is wrong. his idea to raise taxes is "kooky" and the good professor is an arrogant elitist. after reading what he wrote. he is not kooky. he is crazy, nuts, arrogant and I people shold read his work before sending their children to become one of his students. there should be a law against people like him being allowed to be professors. he could almost be charged with indecent exposure.

Speaking of "kooky": How's this for kooky?

From Bud Jackson: "Most Arkansans agree that raising all of their taxes instead of establishing a voluntary lottery is just plain kooky."

"Most Arkansans agree"? Counted by whom? When? Where? How?

Anecdotal evidence points to the contrary.

How many times have gambling proposals been brought before the Arkansas electorate?

How many times have they passed?

Mr. Jackson may be right. But the results won't be known until the votes are counted.

And the most that can be said even after the votes are counted is that "Most of the voters agree . . ." with whatever the outcome of the vote is.

"Most Arkansans agree" is at best an unsupported assertion. At worst an outright lie, or maybe just an asinine claim! Or maybe I should be content with calling it "kooky."

Bud Jackson freaks out all the girls.