Southwest Virginia Blogs

From the BHC.

•  House and Senate negotiators approved a compromise energy bill Tuesday that could boost Southwest Virginia’s economy by encouraging coal usage through tax incentives promoting clean coal technology.It has taken four years for Congress to work out a comprehensive bill. It is expected to be approved in both houses later this week and also meet the approval of President Bush.U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher, D-9th, was on the conference committee that hammered out the differences between the bills. The final product would be good for the region and nation, he said.New jobs could be created locally by a higher demand for coal, he said. The region has substantial coal reserves and the nation has a 250-year supply of coal, he added."The goal I set to encourage the use of coal in a large number of new electricity generating plants that will be built in the next two decades has been reached," Boucher said.The legislation includes $3 billion in various tax incentives to encourage the use of coal and promote a new generation of clean coal technology, he said. It encourages the construction of integrated gasification combined cycle generation plants similar to the one American Electric Power wants to have on line in the next 10 years. The plants are fueled by coal that is converted to gas. Read all.

This is good news for my area! Coal demand is at a high and the jobs created are the best around. The once closed Glaymorgan Coal Co. in Wise is up and running again. In fact I will work a train there tomorrow. They have the old prep plant and are improving it. they also are saying a new state of the art train load out is in the plans! The plant is being fed by mines in Pound and other areas and a new mines is getting started within 1/4 mile of the plant. Good news indeed.

I was out working a train till late last night, so today I am free till 4pm. I am using this time to catch up around the blogosphere.

Bearing Drift has a good post on The Virginia Pilot article  "SOL history scores may be waived for second year." Wait till you read the reason!

John Behan post's that there will be televised debates between Kilgore and Kaine.

Norman tears apart Raising Kaine with this fact filled post. You will always get a kick out of Raising Kaine, but you will not get the truth!

Brain is "Live in Roanoke" for the BAR exam. Good luck Brian!

That Salt Lick post's some sobering numbers.

The CatHouse has taken it on the road! I would go to the bloggers conference if Romeocat was going too! I love her blog! Family is important to her and her blog reflects it. She writes from the heart!

Speaking of Cats...Ferdy and his pet Bruce are posting away at The Conservative Cat. Hey guy's...I thought you would have linked this for me??

The FTC is finally using the CAN-SPAM law to crack down on spammers sending out X-rated email without appropriate warnings. The large fines should make some of these outfits think twice--one penalty was $650,000.

Well Mr. Behan has posted, and a good one indeed. John feels as I do that it is not good news for Kilgore. He also feels there is something strange about it too.

• " For what it’s worth, I’m very skeptical of the results of this poll, since they fly in the face of every other poll taken in the race." (J.B.)

John lists 8 other polls. I feel that way too. The support of Pott's shows me something is wrong. That is a common sense thing. Republicans might vote for Kaine as some did for Warner, but Pott's? I don't think so. A poll on a local message board has Kilgore up by 7. That is consistent with the 8 polls previous that John posted.

Polling is a strange thing. In the past election I looked at all the polls and went with the total average. Election day proved it right. Bush won by the average lead he carried in all the polls. I am not an expert, but as I posted before, I hang up as soon as I hear the word survey. Norman called this refusal rate. This has to affect the results of any poll. Who really wants to do this after a day's work? Not me. So I question who answers the phones? Non workers? House wife's? Kids out of school? That is why the average theory works for me. If the next one comes out with the same data that is trouble for Kilgore. Right now we need to Spark Up the base and work harder.

Just to add a note- Google flaws with Mason Dixon polls.

• Results 1 - 10 of about 5,420 for flaws with mason Dixon polls.

• 9/15/04

  Mason-Dixon

  Link

  624 LV

  4%

  Bush

  49%

  Kerry

  40%

  Bush +9

The actual results were Bush 48% Gore 47%. Mason Dixon was way off compared to the other polls listed here. Some other problems with Mason Dixon are noted here. The article explains it very well. The real pundits may argue about the results, but I will wait for the next one to come out.

The Mason Dixon poll is out. The RTD has this report.

• With the election less than four months away, the poll found Kaine with 38 percent of likely voters and Kilgore with 37 percent. Last September Kaine, the lieutenant governor, trailed Kilgore, a Scott County native and former attorney general, by 5 percentage points.

I guess all the other polls are wrong showing Kilgore ahead by 7 to 10 points. What did the Kilgore camp say?

• Kilgore press secretary Tim Murtaugh said, "This poll flies in the face of everything we have seen - eight other public polls and our own internal polling - that shows Jerry Kilgore with a clear lead in this race. ... There is no evidence to support what this poll says. We will continue to run as if we are 10 points behind."

Guess we wait till Nov to find out. The bottom line is this is bad news for Kilgore, no matter how you look at it. I will see what the pundits have to say Sunday. It should be a BIG BLOG DAY IN VIRGINIA.

You saw it here first, it hit the wire at @12 and Posted it fast. Will any of the ODBA link it? Doubtful.....Sad but true...A few of us Virginia bloggers are out of the circle.