Archive for February, 2006
Monday, February 27th, 2006
I had an interesting question of the day today in Government class. It
asked who we think the frontrunners for the Democrat and Republican
parties will be to run in the 2008 presidential election. Well, me and
Neal (Neal 2028) got into a discussion about it.
I think these are possibilities:
R- Bill Frist, Mitch McConnell, Newt Gingrich
Don't even ask about former NYC mayor Rudolph Giuliani. I don't think he
will be a frontrunner in the primaries.
D- Mark Warner, Hillary Clinton
I will be old enough to vote in 2008, and if I'm going on current
politics, I would definitely choose Mark Warner over Hillary Clinton.
Hillary Clinton can "Monica Lewinksy" herself. If you don't know what
that means, ask Neal2028.
Mark Warner for Prez!
jf
--
Justin Fleenor
jf
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
This week's edition of The Virginia Blog Carnival is open at NOVA Democrat. I've just browsed thorugh it, without having time right now to check out all the links. It looks like a good one though, with several contributors I'n not seen before. Check it out, I will be soon.
UPDATE:
I finally got a chance to sample the wares at this week's Carnival. NOVA Democrat has put together a good selection
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
The number of rural people using broadband more than doubled between 2003 and 2005, but that is still just a little more than half the number of urban broadband users. A new Pew Foundation study says availability seems to the primary factor--no surprise to anyone that lives in a rural area of the U.S.
Posted in Broadband | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Jim Bacon is all over the political correctness run amuck at Virginia Tech beat--their new "Safewatch" program.
I am concerned that Commonwealth Conservative may be banned in Blacksburg because of our insenstitive Caption Contest fixation on Brokeback Mountain themes.
Yes, there is something wrong with that.
Posted in Campus life, Dumb stuff | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Chris Cillizza, who writes the Washington Post online column "The Fix," has an interview with Sen. George Allen. Not surprisingly, Allen casts himself in the Reagan mold.
Posted in 2006 Senate campaign, Allen for President, National politics, The Gipper, Virginia politics | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
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If only they could've
gotten Sly on keys... |
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CLICK |
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Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
There was a nice sky this morning. I have several more shots, but I only have time for a brief post. There is a good article by Paul Krugman in the NY Times if you're wondering why you aren't feeling...
Posted in Current Affairs | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
I'm sort of wondering if maybe some of the workers at Valleydale didn't even know they were losing their jobs, and when they were let go recently it actually came as a surprise to them. One of our customers stopped by the shop on Friday to tell my husband Valleydale let a bunch of workers go and asked if we had any work for him. My husband felt terrible that he couldn't help him, not only
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
One of those grim searches that every parent fears is taking place in my neighborhood right now. The brother of one of the missing boys is in my daughter's class.
Before, I always watched these sad events from afar with a lump in my throat. That same lump is there, but it's more intense [...]
Posted in Family blogging, Life | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Brisk morning air hit me full in the face as I walked down the driveway this morning, resuming a too-long-ago abandoned practice of morning walks. Frost-covered grass crunched under my feet as I headed across the lower lawn towards Sandy Flats Road.
My left knee, wrapped and braced for morning event, popped as it bent, still recovering from a sprained ligament and bone bruise from a fall more than two months ago during the December ice storm. Foolishly, I allowed that injury to turn me into a semi-invalid, taking stairs a half-step at a time and giving up more often on activity when it started to ache.
No more. Mind over body. Too little activity combined with too many calories had ballooned my weight and left my body too weak for even the simplest of household chores. An attempt at yard work on this past warm Saturday left me grasping for breath. Not good.
So I limbered up for 30 minutes on an exercise bike, then bundled up to venture out into 16-degree weather for another 30 minutes of walking. The cold air rejuvenated me as I headed south up the hill on Sandy Flats. I reached the top winded but determined to push on, heading east on Harvestwood to its intersection with Christiansburg Pike.
A brief rest at the church and then a return trip, picking up the pace as I forged along the frozen ruts of Harvestwood. Some 45 minutes had passed when I reached the foot of our driveway out of breath and started up the 450-foot, 35-degree anglem knowing this final stretch would be the hardest. By the top, I gasped for breath, inhaling lungfulls of frozen air.
In the kitchen, I gulped down two bottles of water and headed for the shower, exhausted.
Day one. Let the comeback begin.
Posted in Musings | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
I suspect there's still time to enter the Caption Contest.
The surprise to this old caption aficiando is that no one has gone for the reality angle. The young man on the right is obviously the love child of Doug Wilder, making the other young man almost certainly the progeny of Paul [...]
Posted in Dumb stuff | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Just when I begin to think we here in America are getting beyond the silly fixation we seem to have on skin tone and the implications that derive from it (we call it racism), the entire country erupts in anger and lashes out with venom at a company owned by the government of the United Arab Emirates because the company's leadership is trying to do a deal with the U.S. government to take over the administration of a handful of our port facilities. Oh, and because the leadership is Arab (of a sort of olive oil skin tone), politicians - Democrats and Republicans alike, racists all - are enraged.
Sigh.
But just when demoralization starts to set in and I begin to accept the fact that we will never be able to get beyond discussions of race, I read this in Collegiate Times, the Virginia Tech student nespaper:
Recent college applicants decline to give race
David Grant, News Editor, Sarah Larkins, News Assistant
Trend towards more "other" respondents happening across nation
A fifth of the largest application class in Tech history of almost 19,000 applicants listed its race as “other.â€
This “other†grouping consists mostly of those who would typically fall under the “White†category as well as mixed-race students with Caucasian parentage, according to two Tech administrators and a study published by the Irvine Foundation, a California-based non-profit that focuses on education issues for low-income citizens. (
link
)
The article provides "expert" opinions as to the reason for this trend, all of which are valid. To me, though, the trend indicates a reflection of the ethnic makeup of America, which is rapidly becoming homogenized (we once called it inbreeding) as white folks marry black folks and latinos marry Native Americans, etc.
Also, there are people - and you can now include me in this category - who consider it none of the government's business (or Virginia Tech's either) how one's family tree is configured.
So include me in the "other" racial category henceforth. I encourage everyone to do the same. We are going to end this lunacy once and for all.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Most overrated blog!
Heh.
UPDATE: Looks like they changed the name of the award. Oh, well.
Posted in Blogging, Dumb stuff | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
The Roanoke Times, in
an editorial yesterday
, goes to great lengths to try to define for us just how much poverty there is in the USA. Being an avid student of statistics, I read the column with rapt attention.
For those of you, though, who don't wish to submerse yourselves in the numbers, let me summarize the data for you. There are a whole lot of people in this country living in poverty. On this we can agree.
But then the Times offers up its tired and failed 1960's solution to the poverty problem - in the form of a slap at the Bush administration:
Whatever the appropriate assumptions, the nation is headed in the wrong direction after years of helping its neediest citizens.
The implication is that we're somehow doing less to help the needy. When did we stop? Is there anyone reading this that actually thinks funding for Medicare or Medicaid or Social Security or the myriad worker training programs has actually gone down? Ever? The notion is so preposterous that I'll not even waste my time pulling up all the government outlay statistics from past years. If the Times can disprove the following, let them provide the data:
State and federal spending toward "the safety net" has increased every year since 1969 (the beginning of Lyndon Johnson's "Great Society" spending binge) and continues to climb into 2006. Four trillion dollars and counting.
But there's a bigger issue - one that puts the Times editorial staff and me on opposite sides of the great divide. Reliance on the "safety net" to improve the lot of the poor will only make their situation worse.
Pay close attention: In order to provide funds for that net, a sum that now runs into the hundreds of billions of dollars each year nationwide, taxes must be levied. The folks at the Times will have you believe that there isn't enough being done to "tax the rich" but the truth is, there aren't enough rich people in this country to come close to paying for the immense "safety net."
So the government goes after the business sector. Off the top of my head, America's companies - large and small - can expect to pay ...
... federal corporate income taxes, an income tax on corporate profits, inventory taxes (!), accounts receivable taxes, building permit taxes, capital gains taxes, CDL license taxes, state income taxes, federal unemployment taxes (FUTA), food license taxes, fuel permit taxes, gasoline taxes (42 cents per gallon - today, Tim), taxes on interest earned, and then there are the many local taxes ...
My guess is a good tax accountant can grow that list to mammouth proportions. I invite the input.
The point is this: We don't need a safety net (except for the elderly and the infirm) if everyone is gainfully employed. Far too many people here in Southwest Virginia are not employed because too many of those companies that had been operating here have ceased operations because the cost of doing business became too great.
In order to fund "the safety net," we raise taxes and fees to a point where companies fail. Or move their operations to India. Those workers who lose their jobs fall into the safety net, requiring more funds. And higher taxes. The heavier tax burden on the remaining businesses results in more failures. More laid off workers go into the safety net ... and on and on.
I read not long ago that 25% of Tazewell County residents are now on some sort of government relief. They've become woven into the fabric of the safety net. Though Tazewell can boast that it has an excellent benefit delivery system, what it doesn't have is economic growth. The county is now slowly
depopulating
and the poverty rate there is 50% higher than the rest of the state.
Tazewell County, Virginia has a wondrous safety net.
It needs employers
. Throw more money at the former, expect fewer of the latter. And watch Tazewell County die.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
In yesterday's Richmond Times-Dispatch, Metro editor Andy Taylor had a thoughtful column on the "could not be reached for comment" phenomenon among public officials when a big story has broken: Saying "so-and-so could not be reached for comment" rings hollow these days. It's hard to imagine there are public leaders without cellphones, and it's [...]
Posted in Virginia politics | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
I should have been paying closer attention to the Olympics. This probably makes sense:Swedes Wing It
Lidstrom's goal decisive; 4 other Hockeytown heroes factor in victory
John Niyo, The Detroit News
TORINO, Italy -- Welcome home, boys.
There won't be any need for dark glasses and fake moustaches when Nicklas Lidstrom and his fellow countrymen on the Red Wings' roster head to Sweden this summer. Not like four years ago, when the Olympic hockey team lost a stunner to Belarus in a quarterfinal and the next day the national newspaper ran a front-page headline that read: "They Shamed Their Country."
No, this time they've got a passport that's as good as gold.
Sweden erased its recent history of failures on the international stage by outlasting archrival Finland for a hard-fought 3-2 victory Sunday in the men's gold-medal game at the Palasport Olimpico.
Each of the five Wings on the Swedish roster played a key role in the victory ... (link)
Half the Swedish Olympic team lives in the USA and plays for the Detroit Red Wings. At what point does the Swedish Olympic hockey team become the U.S. Olympic hockey team?I'm so confused.
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Christina Nukols of the Virginian-Pilot has a front page, above the fold profile of Jody Wagner, former State Treasurer and now Secretary of Finance. It's almost adoringly positive, with subtle and not so subtle digs at Republicans sprinkled throughout.
Secretary Wagner's family still lives in Virginia Beach and she commutes on weekends. It must [...]
Posted in 2006 Gen. Assembly session, Virginia politics | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Is anyone else a Norman Chad fan?
Posted in Dumb stuff | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
Our exchange student, Clémentine, is back in France after her two weeks of American suburban life. It was a good experience, although not necessarily one I would do again--too hectic. We're gradually getting back into our old routine, but we had grown very attached to her and it just doesn't seem right [...]
Posted in Family blogging | Comments Off
Monday, February 27th, 2006
This is great news! The
UVA-Wise girls basketball team
are on their way to the NAIA tournament. You can read some more about them here and some good pics are here. I know that at least 4 of the girls on the team are from Wise County. LaShay Collier, and sisters Rachel and Sarah Helton played at JJ Kelly high school and Terri Ann Hill played at St Paul. I think I am right about that.
This is the first time they have made the tournament. Way to go ladies and good luck in Sioux City, Iowa.
Technorati : Basketball, NAIA, Sports
Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off