September 18, 2006

RE: WNC Rep distancing from Black....

Posted by Matt Mittan at 10:09 PM

On my 'Take A Stand' program last week, Rep Susan Fisher (D-Buncombe) - she also happens to be the co-chair of the House ethics Committee - said that, no matter what, she WOULD not and COULD not support Jim Black for another term as Speaker of the House. She said that it had gotten too hard for Democrats to get their message out with all the scandals surrounding him. Listen to the interview here. This was a completely different position than she had taken publicly before. She also said during this studio interview that she wanted to be clear and on record with this for the voters of WNC.

Things that make you go 'hmmmmm'.

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RE: Insurance for "kids"...

Posted by Matt Mittan at 9:49 PM

If the 'kids' are going to be allowed to stay on their parents insurance until age 30 - living at home I guess -should those 'kids' also lose their ability to vote? After all - isn't that why the voting age is 18, because you're supposed to be 'out on your own' then?

Here's a topic for discussion... We've changed the measurements for allowing votes in America several times. Let's do it again. What do you think the benchmark to allow voting should be? Age (30 maybe - like for this insurance non-sense?), property ownership, paying taxes? Let's have fun with idea mining here like the framers did. No boundaries.  Email me some ideas and I'll throw them out on the airwaves and report back on what type of response they get.

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Rich People Go Broke, Too

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 4:33 PM

The New York Times finds that even the very wealthy sometimes lose everything. Instead of pondering the larger point of income mobility in a capitalist system, as the paper would likely do if the story were about poor people going bankrupt, the writer just gives examples of people who have come close to or gone into bankruptcy with not a statistic to be found. The article's title explains all you need to know about the kind of Schadenfreude at work here.

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Insurance for "the kids"

Posted by Joseph Coletti at 4:28 PM

More states are allowing children to stay on their parents' insurance until age 30, according to the New York Times. The statists like the idea for some reason, but so do the insurance companies:

The trend stems from a concern that a healthy — and profitable — segment of the population is dropping out of the insurance pool. About half of all states have studied such proposals, and at least nine have passed laws, eight of them since 2003 and three just this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

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Sound familiar? News from the UK

Posted by Jon Sanders at 3:39 PM

A teenager who entertained four men in a Cardiff Bay flat with a private lap dance - which was filmed on a mobile phone - has been sent to jail for crying rape. Cinzia Sannino, 18, of Llanishen, Cardiff, was locked up for six months at Cardiff Crown Court after she admitted making false allegations.

She had claimed to police that she had been raped after asking officers for a lift home.

Prosecutor Chris Lewis last week told the court how the men were kept in police custody for 36 hours - but the video of the lap dance was produced to prove the men's innocence.

Video evidence? Pshaw. Mike Nifong wouldn't be impressed.

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Teacher Blogs

Posted by Lindalyn Kakadelis at 3:06 PM

USA Today’s article, “Teachers speak out of turn,” reports on the various (848) teacher blogs offering their “classroom” view of events happening in schools. One of the quotes compares these written exposes as “dispatch from the front lines or a letter written in a foxhole.”
Who knows maybe Oliver North should begin a whole new series “War Stories from Schools.”  John Stossel has already done the first program.
 

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News from the Hills: WNC Rep. Distances from Black?

Posted by Michael Moore at 2:45 PM

I'm up in the Mountains today, and I was reading the Asheville paper this morning and this op-ed was in there, by Rep.  Bruce Goforth (D-Buncombe).  Is he Anti-Jim Black? 

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Re: cursed infrastructure

Posted by Jon Sanders at 2:05 PM

Sincerely,

The University of North Carolina

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Cursed infrastructure

Posted by Paul Chesser at 1:30 PM

Did you know that North Carolina has 5,250 dams? And that among the 22 percent of the 5,250 dams in North Carolina classified as a high hazard, only one in five had an emergency action plan attached them? And that "high hazard" means that there would be significant loss of life and property downstream should the dam fail?

(Expletive)!

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Going to a prestige university is SO important

Posted by George Leef at 12:27 AM

Or maybe not. This article by Carol Hymowitz in today's Wall Street Journal points out that the CEOs of many very large and successful companies graduated from schools that are nowhere near the pinnacle of the famous US News rankings. Hymowitz writes, "Getting to the corner office has more to do with leadership talent and a drive for success than it does with having an undergraduate degree from a prestigious university."

The CEO of Accenture, for example, went to Dean College, a two-year community school, where he was fortunate enough to encounter a professor of economics who really turned his mind on. Would that have happened at a big research university where the professors largely avoid the undergraduates? Probably not.

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Good News for Freedom out of Sweden

Posted by John Hood at 11:20 AM

From the Associated Press:

Prime Minister Goran Persson was handing in his resignation Monday following the defeat of his Social Democrats in weekend elections, ending a 12-year era that showed the world that Sweden's fabled social model could be an engine of dazzling economic growth. The victorious center-right alliance is promising only to tinker with the welfare state — but some believe their baby-steps toward lower taxes and more flexible labor rules could herald a deeper shift toward market liberalization.

It appears that one of the ways the Moderate Party (which is essentially the free-market conservative party) has made inroads is by explaining that their economic agenda would create employment opportunities, in a country where job creation has been moribund. Thus they were seen as a champion for workers against the stultifying bureaucracy of the Social Democrats.

In fits and starts, and with admittedly modest benefits to date, right-leaning parties are nevertheless making gains in Europe. Don’t tell the American Left — it may cause their heads to explode.

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Re: build it and they will come

Posted by Jon Sanders at 09:33 AM

Paul, lavish buildings or no, Dr. Lane has been a consistent supporter of local churches' partnership with the American Belarussian Relief Organization. This means that every summer he has donating his services for free to the dozens of impoverished Belarussian children who come here annually.

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Build it, and they will come?

Posted by Paul Chesser at 06:48 AM

We (my wife and I) have been watching a medical building (for dental offices) go up behind our nearby CVS for months now, and it has seemed to take for-ev-er to finish it off.

Now I understand why.

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