Cops, schmops

Scoop Doggy, proprietor of South Carolina's only sex with Olympians fantasy blog, has pretty much retired the trophy for micro-management. First he staked his flag on uncovering a state expenditure of $4942.50 on a gay tourism ad campaign in London. The current state budget is just over Twenty Billion Dollars.

Now he's got this Grinchy item up:

• COLUMBIA CAN’T AFFORD CHRISTMAS — Remember that time that daddy went to the casino a little too much and Santa couldn’t get you that bike you wanted so badly? Yeah, well that’s going to happen to the entire city of Columbia if the inept morons who run this town can’t find $140,800. City manager Charles Austin told The State that’s how much it will cost to put up new holiday lights and decorations, which were affected by the recent streetscaping projects that changed the power supply and street configurations. Hmm… let’s see, off the top of my head I can think of not one, but two things that account for more than half of that total.

The two things he cites are $70,000 spent to develop a hospitality slogan/ad campaign in 2oo4. The other is another $70,000 spent on the new ad slogan/campaign. Never mind that from time to time tourism campaigns get updated as a matter of course.

Those two past expanses do amount to "more than half" the holiday lighting total. They amount to all of it. Of course, having been spent, they can't be re-spent to gladden Tiny Tim's little holiday heart.

So what's the "not one" item?

A link back to one of McLovin's fave posts, about RuPaul coming to perform at Columbia's Gay Pride events. Citing a Columbia Free Press story, Mr. South Carolina Tourism claimed:

Much of that funding will come from a hospitality tax and go toward paying drag entertainer RuPaul.

McLovin's bete noire, so to speak (did I mention he's black?)

The actual story read:

South Carolina Pride plans to use part of the city grant money to promote its September festival in cities such as Atlanta and Charlotte, Wilson says. The money also will help cover the cost of the festival’s entertainment, namely drag entertainer RuPaul.

Scoop Doggy seems to have a thing about RuPaul. He just keeps linking back to the story. But when he first started jonesin' about it, it was because he felt unsafe in his Columbia home:

With violent crime, homelessness, gang activity, domestic abuse,corruption and various other things running rampant in Columbia the city council has decided to allocate $10,000 taxpayer dollars to the South Carolina Gay and Lesbian Pride Movement which said it will use that money on their September festival, the Free Times reports. Much of that funding will come from a hospitality tax and go toward paying drag entertainer RuPaul.

The hospitality tax, a 2 percent levy on prepared food and drink, goes toward supporting tourism in the city. [...]

Mayor Bob Coble says he is pleased that the city is presenting a welcoming image. “Columbia respects people of all walks of life, and this diversity is our strength,” Coble says.

From a financial standpoint, Coble says having an open and accepting community is important if the city wants to be competitive in the global economy. [Free Times]

You know what else is important? Not getting mugged or having your property stolen because the $10,000 that could have paid for an extra police officer to patrol the streets at night for a third of the year was spent on a drag show.

But just like the “So Gay” campaign, it’s only a few thousand dollars, supporters say. No big deal. Chump change.

Forget that it could have been put to use in about 500 million better ways that would bring about desperately needed changes. And forget that the city budget is loaded with BS handouts like this and the nearly $500,000 allocated by a member of city council to HIMSELF.

Nope, saving lives apparently isn’t PC-enough anymore.

Note: The first loud-mouthed New Englander that has never lived in Columbia and had their car broken into, their house robbed, their friends attacked at gunpoint and on and on because there aren’t enough on-duty police officers who comes on here calling me a bigot or homophobe is banned for life.

Now Scoop Doggy wants to rob Columbia's streets of the imagined benefits of a one cop for for months to pay for Christmas lights.

Human life is worth less than holiday bulbs for the biggest commercial shopping season of the year? Wait till the pro-lifers hear about you. Y'all gonna get your GOP card yanked so fast...Here's the funny bit: Scoopy got all wobbly in the knees when his "South Carolina is So Gay, But I'm Not, Sister" story made the faux-news program The Colbert Report. It had about 1.1 million viewers the first week of August.

Kinda behind the curve, eh, Scoopy?

RuPaul was a judge on Project Runway this week. Runway opened its summer season with 3 million viewers.