Kaine's spending cut from budgetAs a matter of record, Chad was first to report the good news yesterday.
Virginia's longest budget fight ended with most of the governor's proposed spending stripped away.
By Michael Sluss, The Roanoke Times
RICHMOND -- The House of Delegates on Wednesday rejected nearly $22 million in new spending proposed by Gov. Tim Kaine, bringing a chaotic and acrimonious conclusion to the longest budget fight in Virginia history.
The House's Republican majority turned back Kaine's attempts to add funding for the Art Museum of Western Virginia, for a building project at Virginia Western Community College, and for economic
development grants to help several localities in the Alleghany Highlands. It also rejected Kaine's proposal to help fund a combined sewer overflow project in Lynchburg aimed at preventing raw sewage discharges into the James River. ( link )
Kaine's spending cut from budgetAs a matter of record, Chad was first to report the good news yesterday.
Virginia's longest budget fight ended with most of the governor's proposed spending stripped away.
By Michael Sluss, The Roanoke Times
RICHMOND -- The House of Delegates on Wednesday rejected nearly $22 million in new spending proposed by Gov. Tim Kaine, bringing a chaotic and acrimonious conclusion to the longest budget fight in Virginia history.
The House's Republican majority turned back Kaine's attempts to add funding for the Art Museum of Western Virginia, for a building project at Virginia Western Community College, and for economic
development grants to help several localities in the Alleghany Highlands. It also rejected Kaine's proposal to help fund a combined sewer overflow project in Lynchburg aimed at preventing raw sewage discharges into the James River. ( link )
Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria FaltersBug spray and nets. The pandemic will continue unabated.
By Cwlia W. Dugger, The New York Times
The mosquito nets arrived too late for 18-month-old Phillip Odong.
The roly-poly boy came down with his fourth bout of malaria on March 16, the same day the nets were handed out at the makeshift camp where he lived in northern Uganda. "It was because of poverty that we could not afford one," his mother, Jackeline Ato, recalled recently, seated in rags beneath a mango tree.
As many as 100,000 people, mostly children, die of malaria each year in Uganda alone. "It's like a jumbo jet crashing every day," said Dr. Andrew Collins, deputy director of the Malaria Consortium, an international nonprofit group.
The United States is testing indoor insecticide spraying there. It is also treating more than 700,000 nets that Ugandans already own with insecticides and buying another 400,000 nets laced with insecticides that last up to five years.
Millions of doses of Global Fund-financed Coartem, the antimalaria drug, arrived this year in Uganda ... ( link )
Push for New Tactics as War on Malaria FaltersBug spray and nets. The pandemic will continue unabated.
By Cwlia W. Dugger, The New York Times
The mosquito nets arrived too late for 18-month-old Phillip Odong.
The roly-poly boy came down with his fourth bout of malaria on March 16, the same day the nets were handed out at the makeshift camp where he lived in northern Uganda. "It was because of poverty that we could not afford one," his mother, Jackeline Ato, recalled recently, seated in rags beneath a mango tree.
As many as 100,000 people, mostly children, die of malaria each year in Uganda alone. "It's like a jumbo jet crashing every day," said Dr. Andrew Collins, deputy director of the Malaria Consortium, an international nonprofit group.
The United States is testing indoor insecticide spraying there. It is also treating more than 700,000 nets that Ugandans already own with insecticides and buying another 400,000 nets laced with insecticides that last up to five years.
Millions of doses of Global Fund-financed Coartem, the antimalaria drug, arrived this year in Uganda ... ( link )
Germany and the other 127 signatories consider the Kyoto Protocol to be the most important of all the global environmental agreements. Above and beyond its importance as a milestone in global climate protection, it has a vast impact in terms of development policy and constitutes a new element of the global economic order. ( link )Wow. So why was it so funny?
New German Rule Could Increase Greenhouse Gas EmissionsPresident Bush should follow the lead of Europe's most influential steward of the environment. I call on the Bush administration to sign the Kyoto treaty and then to exempt our coal, petroleum, and natural gas industries.
By Judy Dempsey, The New York Times
BERLIN, June 28 — Germany, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in Europe, announced changes Wednesday that would allow increases in its emissions — a move that is expected to be challenged by the European Commission.
The German cabinet decided to exclude the coal industry from the European Union's carbon trading program, under which companies must buy permits before they can release higher-than-mandated levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The move could persuade other countries to loosen their controls, critics said. ( link )
Germany and the other 127 signatories consider the Kyoto Protocol to be the most important of all the global environmental agreements. Above and beyond its importance as a milestone in global climate protection, it has a vast impact in terms of development policy and constitutes a new element of the global economic order. ( link )Wow. So why was it so funny?
New German Rule Could Increase Greenhouse Gas EmissionsPresident Bush should follow the lead of Europe's most influential steward of the environment. I call on the Bush administration to sign the Kyoto treaty and then to exempt our coal, petroleum, and natural gas industries.
By Judy Dempsey, The New York Times
BERLIN, June 28 — Germany, one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in Europe, announced changes Wednesday that would allow increases in its emissions — a move that is expected to be challenged by the European Commission.
The German cabinet decided to exclude the coal industry from the European Union's carbon trading program, under which companies must buy permits before they can release higher-than-mandated levels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The move could persuade other countries to loosen their controls, critics said. ( link )
Maine Struggling to Revive Ailing EconomyUnlike Southwest Virginia, the state of Maine at least has its tourism industry to fall back on.
By Ariel Sabar, The New York Times
PORTLAND, Me., June 28 — Maine was the only state besides Louisiana to see a decline in economic activity last year, according to a new Federal Reserve study.
The state lost 1,700 manufacturing jobs and 800 financial jobs, said the report, which was posted on the Web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The losses were partly offset by gains in education, health services, professional and business services, and government.
"Our manufacturing base is just disappearing," said Michael R. Donihue, a professor at Colby College in Waterville, who sits on a public board in charge of state economic forecasts. " ( link )
Maine Struggling to Revive Ailing EconomyUnlike Southwest Virginia, the state of Maine at least has its tourism industry to fall back on.
By Ariel Sabar, The New York Times
PORTLAND, Me., June 28 — Maine was the only state besides Louisiana to see a decline in economic activity last year, according to a new Federal Reserve study.
The state lost 1,700 manufacturing jobs and 800 financial jobs, said the report, which was posted on the Web site of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The losses were partly offset by gains in education, health services, professional and business services, and government.
"Our manufacturing base is just disappearing," said Michael R. Donihue, a professor at Colby College in Waterville, who sits on a public board in charge of state economic forecasts. " ( link )
Like a bastard step-child, FloydCounty.Com has been an often-neglected web site, not even worthy of inclusion on my web servers, parked as a domain with Yahoo Small Business Web Hosting.
I registered the domain name, FloydCounty.Com, in 1997 but did little with the web site until moving back to the county in 2004. For a while it ran as a blog. Last year, I announced plans to turn it into a multi-media news and information site and re-launched it several months ago as a combination blog/news site. I talked to other bloggers in the area about contributing to it but only one, David St. Lawrence, stepped forward to add material to it as I all but ignored the site while getting too wrapped up in other projects.
But David cannot carry the load alone and the limitations of the WordPress publishing software used on the site led him to decide to concentrate his efforts on new, photo and blog oriented sites of his own (although he has graciously offered to continue to contribute to FloydCounty.Com).
Which leaves me to ponder what to do with the thing. I'm not sure Floyd needs another information site. Floyd County in View and FloydVirginia.Com provide extensive information resources and Floyd Countian Rose Bowen's excellent NRV Today covers daily news in the county (far better than the New River Valley Current section of Roanoke Times web site).
My original goal for FloydCounty.Com was a multi-media site with photography, video, interactivity and more. All are time-consuming. Perhaps now that I've pulled the plug on the time-absorbing and resource-eating Campaign for Our America I can devote more effort to making FloydCounty.Com work. I've suggested to David that we might pool our efforts to incorporate what he wants to do into the format but that decision is up to him. My vision for FloydCounty.Com was that it should become a collaborative web site featuring contributions from county writers, photographers and poets.
What do you think?