WV looks better as others do worse part 2

Michigan’s woes: “Of all the ominous statistics, perhaps none is grimmer than this: Michigan ranks second to West Virginia in percentage of college graduates moving to other states. We are losing a generation of our best and brightest.”  ….from Alabama hot on Michigan’s Economic heels

WV losing 190 Telemarketing jobs in two towns.

Professionals find jobs back in rural home towns.

Wealth solves Many problems. WV’s hidden tax

WV looks better as others do worse

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — Arkansas’ top higher education official said the state now ranks last in the nation for the percentage of adults completing college.

Jim Purcell said Arkansas has slipped from 19.7 percent of residents holding bachelor’s degrees to 18.2 percent. That puts Arkansas behind West Virginia.

TitleTown USA – Parkersburg? Vote often!

Parkersburg has been selected from 3000 cities nationwide as a top 20 ESPN Titletown USA. This is due to the fact that the Parkersburg High Schools have won 192 team state championships since 1950.

Parkersburg is competing with Boston Chicago LA etc. Their championships do not include individual titles, only team titles.

Their Mayor says, “Although we have been rival to every school in the state at one time or another, it would be great if all of WV would get behind a home state school and vote on ESPN.com from July 23 – 26 for the city of Parkersburg. People may vote as often as they like during that time.”

Beginning July 23, click this link to vote:

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/titletown/index

Business sense at the Board of Education

Help me out because I do not understand the details.  Dominion approaches the Harrison County board of Education and says, we will give you $750 for a ten year lease to ensure that the South Harrison High School property becomes part of our buffer system that prevents anyone else from drilling near our assets.

The President of the Board, who will be leaving office in a matter of days, decides that this action cannot wait until the two new members of the Board take office July first. He calls a special meeting of the Board of Education to entertain Dominion’s request. Each Board member is paid $150 to attend that session. Five members are therefore paid $750.  Sounds like a great deal to the Board.  So they approve it plus whatever costs they incurred by finding independent legal council to review the contract because the guy they have on retainer has a conflict of interest between the Board and Dominion.

And how does the Board or the public benefit from this again? Did they really spend more money to give property rights away then they received in payment?

Thankfully, two seats on the Board are changing hands today. Paul J Howe III and Chuck Reider will be sworn in around 3:30.  Perhaps, we have elected two people who will start asking the obvious questions and challenging the way the Board has been doing business.

V.P. Cheney knows Sexual Deviation is Funny?

“We’d always known about the Cheney family line on my father’s side of the family, back to Massachusetts in the 1630s. My grandmother was named Tyler but it turned out she was descended from a Richard Cheney, same last name, who landed in Maryland in the 1650s,” Vice President Cheney said. “So I had Cheneys on both sides of the family — and we don’t even live in West Virginia.”  … Vice President Richard Cheney at the National Press Club June 1, 2008

Can you imagine the knee-slapping howl that Dick and Lynne Cheney’s must have let out upon discovering that their daughter, Mary, was a lesbian?

Is it ok to make incest jokes about every girl and woman in West Virginia and some how judge it to be impolitic if one mentions the VP’s own daughter’s sexual proclivities?

Both are wrong.  Some researchers are claiming some insight into a genetic basis for homosexuality. It may turn out that having Cheneys’ on both side of the family tree may, in fact, cause some recessive trait. The evidence is not yet in.  Geographical residence has little to do with it.  It is safe for Cheney to come to West Virgina. We have, unfortunately, made dueling illegal.  The honor of our people must be the lives we lead.

Remember October  2004 and the Presidential debates?  John F. Kerry took it upon himself to mention that the VP’s daughter was a lesbian.  John Edwards did the same thing during the debate between the VP candidates.  I thought they were both slime balls at the time for playing that card in the hopes of alienating the ‘religious right’ to vote for them based on making disclosures of Mary’s private life.

Lynne Cheney, speaking as a mom, made the comment in regard to Kerry’s remarks, “the only thing I can conclude is that this is not a good man.” She was right at the time.  Now she needs to lecture her husband.

Judge Drew Crislip expresses thoughts on election loss

Family Court Judge Drew Crislip is a blogger. In his latest entry he speaks from the heart on his feelings about losing the Primary Election.

It is worth reading just to remind ourselves that many office holders and candidates treat their pursuits with genuine sincerity and with a desire to serve. The rejection at the polls is a big disappointment to them personally. They put out a tremendous effort in time and money to educate the public and to seek the public’s permission to continue their work.

The losing candidates also deserve our thanks for making the effort.

Judge Crislip’s blog entry can be found HERE

WVU President

An email received from Beverly:

What about Garrison being given a  no-confidence vote by the Faculty Senate?  Who runs WVU anyway?  It looks like the Governor and Mylan Industries to me.  I think Mr. Garrison should step down so the university can go on.  Already I have seen where two major contributors are going to withhold money for the university.  I hate to think that tuition is going to go up again because we are losing contributors over Garrison.

Remind you of any Clarksburg Council Member?

Excerpts from this WSJ Article

Fifty-four years ago today, Sen. Joseph McCarthy started his televised hearings on alleged Soviet spies and communists in the Army. The spectacle grabbed the country’s attention for the next two months.

By the end of the McCarthy hearings, the senator’s career was over; before an audience that often numbered 20 million Americans, he came across as bullying and unscrupulous.

…”The problem was that McCarthy lied about his information and figures,” “He made charges against people that weren’t true. McCarthyism harmed the counterintelligence effort against the Soviet threat because of the revulsion it caused.”

The Army-McCarthy hearings followed a pattern, notes Donald A. Ritchie, associate historian of the Senate. Typically, McCarthy held hearings in executive session first, “like a dress rehearsal,” says Mr. Ritchie, who studied the transcripts of the hearings. Mostly McCarthy didn’t have any hard evidence against the people he was interrogating; he just hoped to get them to contradict themselves or to take the Fifth Amendment, or to confess.

“He interviewed about 500 people in closed session,” Mr. Ritchie told me. “He called about 300 people to public session.”

“After they’d testified in closed session, he’d go out in the hall, and he’d tell the waiting press what had just happened,” Mr. Ritchie says. “We looked at both the New York Times’s and the Chicago Tribune’s accounts and then we compared that to what actually went on inside the hearings. What he told the press grossly exaggerated what took place.”

SBA does not Fund Charles Pointe School

Back to the drawing boards. Will the property still be donated for Board of Education?

http://www.wvs.state.wv.us/wvsba/

They Forgot to tell you … B’Port Home Rule Application

The City of Bridgeport forgot to tell the public this:

The West Virginia Home Rule Board has scheduled a meeting with Bridgeport’s City Council. It will be held Tuesday, April 15 at 9:00am at City Hall in Council Chambers. The City will present their application. The Home Rule Board will have the opportunity to ask questions of the City regarding its presentation and application. The meeting is open to the public and the public will have a chance to speak to the Home Rule Board regarding Bridgeport’s application.