Southwest Virginia Blogs

"The hundreds of thousands of foreign workers now employed in the Reich are a headache. The danger exists that (relations) between these workers and German women will cause a gradual deterioration of our race. This danger must be checked by every possible means. But it is difficult to discuss such questions in public because the peoples and nations affected immediately take offense" (Joseph Goebbels, 1942).

"If American citizens don't wake up and adopt the Virgil Goode position on immigration there will likely be many more Muslims elected to office and demanding the use of the Koran..I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the US if we do not adopt the strict policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped (Virgiil Goode, 2006).

Recently, I have become the focus of some criticism for my use of the Qu'ran for my ceremonial swearing in. Let me be clear, I am going to be sworn into office like all members of Congress. I am going to swear to uphold the United States Constitution. We seem to have lost the political vision of our founding document -- a vision of inclusion, tolerance and generosity.

I myself use ING Savings, wasn’t aware there was an ING checking yet but thanks to Cameron Johnson for getting the word out–

Do you use ING Direct? I do, and have since I turned 18. Now, they even let minors setup savings accounts. ING is an online savings account that pays very respectable interest rates. They’re super easy to use and best of all they charge no fees and pay rates you’ll never find at a bank for a liquid savings account with no minimum. Check them out at www.ingdirect.com.

Well it just gets better! A few weeks ago I was invited to open an ING Checking Account. And I did just that. Why? Why not? They offer no minimum balance, a Mastercard Debit Card, free ATM access, free bill pay, and a 3% interest rate (about 10x that of banks). And yes, it’s FDIC insured. Look out brick-and-mortar banks. ING and other virtual banks are going to grow by leaps and bounds and prove to be an even bigger threat in the years to come. One more added perk of an ING Checking account, is their new free $1,000 overdraft protection. You’ll never get a “non-sufficient funds” charge from ING - instead they give you an instant credit line so if you write a check for $30 you don’t have, they’ll accept it and not charge you a large fee but instead charge a “competitive interest rate” which would typically cost you less than a few bucks until you replenish your balance. I’m told their new checking account will be available to all customers in Jan or Feb 2007.

I myself use ING Savings, wasn’t aware there was an ING checking yet but thanks to Cameron Johnson for getting the word out–

Do you use ING Direct? I do, and have since I turned 18. Now, they even let minors setup savings accounts. ING is an online savings account that pays very respectable interest rates. They’re super easy to use and best of all they charge no fees and pay rates you’ll never find at a bank for a liquid savings account with no minimum. Check them out at www.ingdirect.com.

Well it just gets better! A few weeks ago I was invited to open an ING Checking Account. And I did just that. Why? Why not? They offer no minimum balance, a Mastercard Debit Card, free ATM access, free bill pay, and a 3% interest rate (about 10x that of banks). And yes, it’s FDIC insured. Look out brick-and-mortar banks. ING and other virtual banks are going to grow by leaps and bounds and prove to be an even bigger threat in the years to come. One more added perk of an ING Checking account, is their new free $1,000 overdraft protection. You’ll never get a “non-sufficient funds” charge from ING - instead they give you an instant credit line so if you write a check for $30 you don’t have, they’ll accept it and not charge you a large fee but instead charge a “competitive interest rate” which would typically cost you less than a few bucks until you replenish your balance. I’m told their new checking account will be available to all customers in Jan or Feb 2007.

Speculation has been raging for weeks that Apple will announce some kind of phone/iPod device tomorrow at the start of the MacWorld conference. You have to take Apple speculation with a grain of salt, since so many writers tend to have some kind of agenda with Apple. Just weeks before Christmas, journalists were writing excitedly that the famed iPod and the iTunes Store were in steep decline, citing suspect data that supposedly showed iTunes sales had dropped drastically.

Two days after Christmas, the media was full of stories about how the iTunes store buckled under the load as millions of iPod owners and iTunes gift card recipients tried to buy music. In the run up to Christmas, iPod accessories like chargers and cases outsold rival MP3 players on Amazon.

So tomorrow we may (or may not) see another Apple device that could, um, upset the apple cart. An Apple-branded phone with iPod and iTunes integration would be popular, but would be competing on a very crowded field. However, some analysts believe Apple may introduce something entirely different: a handheld pocket computer running the full OS X operating system that also doubles as a phone and an iPod. There is not much hard data to support that, but it is the kind of device that would change everything, just as the iMac and the iPod did. Tomorrow may be an interesting day.

Speculation has been raging for weeks that Apple will announce some kind of phone/iPod device tomorrow at the start of the MacWorld conference. You have to take Apple speculation with a grain of salt, since so many writers tend to have some kind of agenda with Apple. Just weeks before Christmas, journalists were writing excitedly that the famed iPod and the iTunes Store were in steep decline, citing suspect data that supposedly showed iTunes sales had dropped drastically.

Two days after Christmas, the media was full of stories about how the iTunes store buckled under the load as millions of iPod owners and iTunes gift card recipients tried to buy music. In the run up to Christmas, iPod accessories like chargers and cases outsold rival MP3 players on Amazon.

So tomorrow we may (or may not) see another Apple device that could, um, upset the apple cart. An Apple-branded phone with iPod and iTunes integration would be popular, but would be competing on a very crowded field. However, some analysts believe Apple may introduce something entirely different: a handheld pocket computer running the full OS X operating system that also doubles as a phone and an iPod. There is not much hard data to support that, but it is the kind of device that would change everything, just as the iMac and the iPod did. Tomorrow may be an interesting day.

Speculation has been raging for weeks that Apple will announce some kind of phone/iPod device tomorrow at the start of the MacWorld conference. You have to take Apple speculation with a grain of salt, since so many writers tend to have some kind of agenda with Apple. Just weeks before Christmas, journalists were writing excitedly that the famed iPod and the iTunes Store were in steep decline, citing suspect data that supposedly showed iTunes sales had dropped drastically.

Two days after Christmas, the media was full of stories about how the iTunes store buckled under the load as millions of iPod owners and iTunes gift card recipients tried to buy music. In the run up to Christmas, iPod accessories like chargers and cases outsold rival MP3 players on Amazon.

So tomorrow we may (or may not) see another Apple device that could, um, upset the apple cart. An Apple-branded phone with iPod and iTunes integration would be popular, but would be competing on a very crowded field. However, some analysts believe Apple may introduce something entirely different: a handheld pocket computer running the full OS X operating system that also doubles as a phone and an iPod. There is not much hard data to support that, but it is the kind of device that would change everything, just as the iMac and the iPod did. Tomorrow may be an interesting day.

Speculation has been raging for weeks that Apple will announce some kind of phone/iPod device tomorrow at the start of the MacWorld conference. You have to take Apple speculation with a grain of salt, since so many writers tend to have some kind of agenda with Apple. Just weeks before Christmas, journalists were writing excitedly that the famed iPod and the iTunes Store were in steep decline, citing suspect data that supposedly showed iTunes sales had dropped drastically.

Two days after Christmas, the media was full of stories about how the iTunes store buckled under the load as millions of iPod owners and iTunes gift card recipients tried to buy music. In the run up to Christmas, iPod accessories like chargers and cases outsold rival MP3 players on Amazon.

So tomorrow we may (or may not) see another Apple device that could, um, upset the apple cart. An Apple-branded phone with iPod and iTunes integration would be popular, but would be competing on a very crowded field. However, some analysts believe Apple may introduce something entirely different: a handheld pocket computer running the full OS X operating system that also doubles as a phone and an iPod. There is not much hard data to support that, but it is the kind of device that would change everything, just as the iMac and the iPod did. Tomorrow may be an interesting day.

GM may be poised to pull an electric rabbit out of its hat that could save the company. The car manufacturer has provided a preview of the Chevrolet Volt, an electric hybrid that has a good chance of beating the Japanese electric hybrids at their own game. GM has done something that is blindingly obvious, but for some reason has been avoided entirely by the Japanese carmakers: make an all electric drive train.

Hybrids like the popular Prius have both a gas engine and an electric motor, and either device can transmit power to the wheels. This improves performance somewhat. But it makes the car much more complex, with a dual power input drive train, and the complexity makes the cars pricey. But GM picked a much simpler design. The Volt has an electric motor to drive the wheels, and a gas engine that only charges the batteries. So the car has fewer parts, less weight (good for mileage and performance), and should be much less expensive. The car can go about forty miles on batteries alone, and according to GM, half the country has a daily commute of less than twenty miles, so a single charge can get you to work and back. If you do need to drive further, the electric generator kicks in to charge the batteries while you drive, extending car range to about 600 miles, at 50 miles to the gallon, according to GM.

You can also plug the car in the wall at night and charge the batteries that way, which might be less expensive if gas prices climb again.

This car could be a big winner for GM, and the Volt could end up being nearly everyone's second or third car. What would be really smart is if the company offered a stripped down version that lends itself to being modified by hot rodders--bigger electric motors, high powered batteries, "hot rod" computer chips, big sound systems, and all the other mods that would harken back to the nineteen fifties when it was a rite of passage to soup up a basic GM automobile.

Update: Reader Ed D. has provided another link with some pictures of the car.