The Haywood County Commissioners suspended payments to the fairgrounds as a budget cutting measure last year. Now, the fairgrounds doesn’t have enough money to pay off its loans. The commissioners didn’t think they could afford to take another $40,000 out of their budget to help. However, they think the federal [...]
There is a huge demand for entrepreneurs to go into the business of providing cheap, unlicensed daycare for children under two-years old.
[...]
Asheville City Council will be considering giving gay domestic partners of city workers benefits. It is argued that men and women living together, but not married, do not deserve the domestic partner benefits because they can get married.
Smart Growth guru Richard Florida has argued that gays bring wealth and [...]
Fascinating.
As we warned back in August, the new owners of The Park condo project have little incentive to finish off the project as condos. In fact, what has emerged now is a hybrid condo-hotel offering. Which requires a rezoning.
[...]Former Alaska Governor, Sarah Palin, has been catching a lot of flak in the lame stream media these last few days for her use of her own hand as a place to write notes. Frankly, your blogger thinks this is just plain silly.
Who hasn't had to [...]
photo of TEDxAsheville 2009 by Jason Sandford of the almighty Ashvegas blogThe largest women's college in the Southeast has done the "unthinkable' and made this blogger a very happy woman!
Meredith College, has dropped a conservative's least popular major, Women's studies. Located on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh, the college added the major during your blogger's study there [...]
This is the coolest scientific article I've read in months, sent along by one of our BlueNC community members.
There is a growing sense that the properties of the universe are best described not by the laws that govern matter but by the laws that govern information. This appears' [...]
This morning, Tom Fetzer, chairman of the North Carolina Republican Party, called for the resignation of two major figures in Governor Beverly Perdue's administration.
During her campaign, Perdue promised to transform state government and make it transparent. Clearly, that hasn't happened [...]
What happens when Republicans run things? Squandered resources. Chaos for parents. Imminent tax increases. All hell breaks loose.
Hat tip to Progressive Pulse.
[...]
Updating the debate over the proposed Clarence E. Lighner Public Safety Center since our Indy story 12 days ago. That the proposal’s rollout was bungled is now a given; but the question remains, who bungled it? Was it City Manager Russell Allen’s fault? Or [...]
We first brought you news of the hiring of a “Part-Time Pier Construction Observer” over the summer. This temporary employee has an 11-month contract (July 23, 2009 – June 23, 2010), working 20 hours per week at an hourly rate of $44.03 (roughly $38,000 total). Main duties of this State-funded position [...]
The owners of a nursing home whose recent bankruptcy filing let them avoid paying a lawsuit judgment gave thousands of dollars to political candidates over the past 18 years.
John and Janice Weeks gave nearly $30,000 to candidates from both parties starting as far back as 1992.
[...]
This is really getting pretty ridiculous. Last year during the budget debate, state Republican (sorry, Republic) Party chair Tom Fetzer was going around the state complaining about the state’s inadequate education system even as he was calling for more tax cuts and draconian budget reductions. [...]
This is really getting pretty ridiculous. Last year during the budget debate, state Republican (sorry, Republic) Party chair Tom Fetzer was going around the state complaining about the state’s inadequate education system even as he was calling for more tax cuts and draconian budget reductions. [...]
The 2010 campaign season formally opened at noon today, with candidates lining up in the board room of the State Board of Elections in downtown Raleigh to pay their filing fee.
Among the early filers were Democratic Congressmen Bob Etheridge of Lillington and Larry Kissell of Biscoe, and Libertarian [...]
The 2010 campaign season formally opened at noon today, with candidates lining up in the board room of the State Board of Elections in downtown Raleigh to pay their filing fee.
Among the early filers were Democratic Congressmen Bob Etheridge of Lillington and Larry Kissell of Biscoe, and Libertarian [...]
Apologies if this has been posted; did a search and did not find it. From the Feb 22, 2010 edition of The Nation -- I believe it sums up the feelings of many progressive voters very well:
How to Get Our Democracy BackIf You Want Change, You Have to [...]
Apologies if this has been posted; did a search and did not find it. From the Feb 22, 2010 edition of The Nation -- I believe it sums up the feelings of many progressive voters very well:
How to Get Our Democracy BackIf You Want Change, You Have to [...]
According to a white paper released by the Wake Education Partnership today, an assignment plan in Wake County that abandons the magnet school policy and sent students to their nearest schools would cause “dozens of capacity problems.” A move to abandon year-round schools would greatly compound the enormous capacity [...]
According to a white paper released by the Wake Education Partnership today, an assignment plan in Wake County that abandons the magnet school policy and sent students to their nearest schools would cause “dozens of capacity problems.” A move to abandon year-round schools would greatly compound the enormous capacity [...]
State Republican Chairman Tom Fetzer Monday called for Gov. Bev Perdue to fire two of her Cabinet members as a result of recent controversies.
[...]
The federal prosecutors pressing the case against Ruffin Poole, a former longtime aide to ex-Gov. Mike Easley, want a trial by mid-May on the 51 corruption charges leveled against the former governor's right-hand man.
' [...]Including its two Democratic Senators:
Virginia could become the first state on the Eastern Seaboard to open its coast to energy exploration since a decades-old federal drilling ban expired more than a year ago.
The new Republican governor, Robert McDonnell, pledged to make Virginia the "energy capital of the East Coast" [...]
Cumberland County’s latest attempt to use incentives to create jobs has hit a stumbling block. The effort is called “Project Starch” and is aimed at attracting the U.S. arm of a Chinese company that wants to make biodegradable tableware out of cornstarch. The Fayetteville Observer explains the difficulty:
County Manager [...]
In an order filed late Sunday night, a judge has dispatched an Orange County sheriff's deputy to Atlanta to be present when a bank safety deposit box purported to contain a sex tape of former presidential candidate John Edwards is opened.
Superior Court Judge Abraham Penn Jones signed the order at' [...]
Our very own UNC-Chapel Hill was highlighted in the NYT over the weekend discussing how the college gender gap affects more than just academia. The article, “The New Math on Campus,” looked into the social ramifications of a non-traditional male/female ratio, specifically how it effects college dating and relationships.
“University of [...]
Republican Tim D'Annunzio knows how to get more bang for the buck -- use guns!
D'Annunzio, running for Congress in the 8th District, is having a "Machine Gun Social" Thursday night, though the event doesn't involve any actual machine guns.
' [...]Amid a weak bunch of Super Bowl ads, the “green police” bit for Audi stood out for the wrong reasons. What was it trying to sell me, exactly? Smug conformity with an out-of-control police state?
New from Audi, the Collaborator Coupe. Selling out your fellow humans never felt so right.
Seriously, [...]
NC representative at the national Tea Party convention:
Click here to view the embedded video.
Share and Enjoy:
[...] Last December Senator Richard Burr co-signed a letter to the EPA requesting that they not designate coal ash as a hazardous waste material. The letter expressed that the costs of the reform would be a burden on utility companies and eventually the average consumer. The Senator seems to be ignoring [...]
Authorities lifted curfew and alcohol restrictions in King on Sunday, but said a state of emergency declaration remained in effect until Monday.
Authorities said the state of emergency declaration would continue until Monday 9 a.m., barring any unforeseen circumstances or severe changes.
Effective Sunday afternoon, alcohol restrictions and a curfew were lifted. [...]
That’s right, the results are in for the 2010 Portland-Sacramento Test. No, this isn’t something that Mary Newsom’s heart go pitty-patter. Rather, it’s a measure of US Airway’s strength on transcon flights from its CLT hub.
The airline has year-round nonstops from CLT to seven destinations in the Mountain and Pacific [...]
Rarely has a political figure risen to national prominence as quickly or imploded as spectacularly as North Carolina's John Edwards. The former U.S. senator, presidential candidate and Democratic nominee for vice president is a well-established punch line for late night comedians for his $400 hair cuts and trashy' [...]
Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty deflected any questions about a possible presidential bid in 2012, during a stop in Raleigh Monday morning.
The GOP governor, who has been prominently mentioned as a potential GOP presidential hopeful, was the keynote speaker at the Emerging Issues forum at the Raleigh Convention Center, Rob [...]
My favorite quote from the North Carolina Center for Public Policy Research press release on Medicaid is:
Medicaid could consume more than 6 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product by 2080, says the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
I’m guessing that 70 year projections sometimes miss the [...]
Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota spoke to the Institute for Emerging Issues here in Raleigh today. The theme of this year's forum (the 25th annual) is “creativity,” specifically how creativity could be used to spark economic development.
[...]
Republicans have made the first of what likely will be many calls for Democrats to cough up tainted cash.
Will Breazeale, a Republican candidate for the 7th congressional district seat held by U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre (right), a Democrat, has said McIntyre should give back $13,000 from donors [...]
Transportation Secretary Gene Conti thinks it’s huge that $520 million in fed stimulus money will help trains running from Raleigh to Charlotte speed up to 90 mph.
Personally, I’m having trouble figuring out why that’s a big deal, since my Ford Freestar minivan books 80 mph down Interstate 85. [...]
A quick update on our first week of Candlestick, where the NC Sierra Club leads the pack on grant-gathering with their disciplined cross-posting. The top Sierra Club post garnered 286 reads. Planned Parenthood also earned grants last week with their welcome coverage of the threats to women's freedom' [...]
Courts today are seeing an epidemic of bankruptcies among older adults, a direct result of eight years of Republican profligacy and disdain for the middle class. Richard Burr and Virginia Foxx think "the cure" is to keep on doing what George Bush did.
The average age for filing bankruptcy has [...]
Guarino notes that King Justice Allah Wray (we could go lots of places with that name) and Dominique Menser —- charged with robbery with a dangerous weapon on Saturday —– are products of Greensboro’s “revolving door justice.”
Interesting that the N&R’s online version is slightly different from the blurb [...]
A Davie County Republican is urging fellow state lawmakers to stop wasting time and money on the state’s climate change commission and support energy policy he says will have a tangible impact on the state. Brock also wants to look into building a refinery in eastern [...]
Finally getting out in the open that the property valuations now being made by the county tax assessor are the hoped for cash cow for both city and county officials. Without a cut in the property tax rates most homeowners will see an increase in their annual property tax [...]
Lest you think government stonewalling of reporters only happens in North Carolina, check out this story from Roll Call about a Freedom of Information Act request the paper made to the Department of Homeland Security. Some of this is laugh-out-loud funny and some of it is truly alarming. [...]
The human brain, for all its power, is suspicious of difficulty. Effective marketers, politicians, and sales people all know to keep it simple.
Now that corporations can buy elections, do you think they'll establish a "returns" policy in case the purchased candidate doesn't perform as expected? When a rich guy spends a hundred grand on an unknown nobody who turns out to be a lecherous drunk, surely a refund would be [...]
The federal civil service is rapidly expanding as Obama increases the size of government, with 33,000 new positions being added in January alone. Only 9,000 of those new slots were for temporary census jobs.
Obama and his party are acting in collusion with unions that contributed something like $400,000,000 [...]
Karma is a bitch.
The guy Ken Lewis and Bank of America tried to turn into Darth Vader a pin-stripe suit is back in the game. John Thain has been tapped to turn around CIT Group Inc.
“This is a company that’s over 100 years old and its core [...]
No, it has nothing to do with policy or politics, but who in the world thinks it’s a good idea to remake a classic like Hawaii Five-O, when men were men. It’s the best TV theme show and TV intro ever produced.
Say it isn’t so.
[...]Readers of this StarNews piece about a federally funded “fish bypass” project on the Cape Fear River may have gotten the impression that I meant to heap scorn on it. See what you think:
…[N]ot everyone thinks it’s wise for the government to spend $12 million in economic recovery dollars [...]
Indy Week’s Samiha Khanna reports that a boneheaded purchasing move several years ago by the City of Durham has resulted in a net loss of more than $120,000 to taxpayers. The person who decided to buy three 2006 trucks for the solid waste department — trucks that weren’t used [...]
The Winston-Salem Journal reports:
The Winston-Salem Dash front office has sold enough ticket packages and received enough sponsorship commitments to pay three times the amount of debt the team owes to the city and its lenders in the first year of operation of the new downtown ballpark, the team president [...]
There are many reforms, big and small, that would help put constitutional restraints back on government and rein in the debilitating influence of longtime incumbency, demagoguery, and special-interest pleading. Here’s one of the small ones that I still think would be helpful: prohibit all lawmakers, state and federal, from physically [...]
Sand Hoke Early College High School in Raeford made the front page of the New York times this morning as an example of a successful early-college school that is set up to help at risk students by allowing them to get a high school diploma and [...]
Strange little tale of two arrests in the Westin parking deck when a plan to rob a drug dealer from Belmont went sideways.
But what caught my eye is that the folks who rented the room at the Westin from which a call to the alleged drug dealer was [...]
Gov. Bev Perdue is rounding up advice on picking a new chief of staff from, among others: Norris Tolson, CEO of the NC Biotechnology Center who often serves as Perdue's Mr. Fixit; Ken Eudy, CEO of Capital Strategies public relations and lobbying firm and
Bruce Clark, who ran the campaign that put Anthony Foxx in Charlotte's mayor's office, is hoping to do the same for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Kenneth Lewis.
[...]
