So we have our new house and are just about all moved in which is why I have not been blogging much lately. Well that and work has been eating up about 70 hours per week lately and I only get paid for 40 of those hours, the joys of being salaried.
The good news is though is that we really have a great new house and I am pumped because it is wired for data and has a great yard with it. Tomorrow I will get to try out my new Cub Cadet lawn mower for real which will be really cool too since it is a big walk behid commercial style mower that should make mowing the lawn very easy.
The only problem is that I have no internet or phone service at this point so I am writing using a Verizon AirCard which is nice but pretty slow. But those are the breaks...
In an e-mail to supporters, the Clinton campaign called West Virginia a "tremendous victory."
"It's clear that the pundits declaring this race over have it all wrong. The voters in West Virginia spoke loud and clear -- they want this contest to go on."
Clinton trails Sen. Barack Obama in delegates won, states won and the popular vote this primary season. Clinton also now trails Obama when it comes to the support of superdelegates, and her campaign is $20 million in the red.
Right, because 28 delegates is going to do you any good and magically put $20 million back in your bank account. West Virginia was a clear victory for Clinton all along and it fits right in with her demographic: Uneducated, poor, old white people. Way to be Hillary, you really showed us a thing or two tonight...
-- Update --
It still amazes me how incredibly gullible people are to actually believe some of the things Hillary Clinton says. Is it not clear she will say anything for a vote? Has she really ever taken anything but the road that she thinks will get her into the White House? Her blog tonight reads like this must be the second coming of Christ or something in West Virginia. I especially like the people who comment about how graceful she has been during the election when she has clearly been the most negative out of any of the candidates. It's too bad there are still so many people that cling to her as the picture of a perfect president. No one is perfect, not even Obama, but he surely is better than the power hungry woman she is.
"The Americans are making China very rich. If Wal-Mart and all these other outfits would quit ordering things and importing things from China and everything would be made in America, China would not have near the wealth that it has now. That's the American way, I guess, so." - Williamsport
And to this point I say: If you think you want to stop giving money to the Chinese, Vietnamese, Indonesians, etc. then you'd best be ready to pay a lot more for what you are buying. There is one reason why it is made there: cheap labor and the more labor costs, the more you are going to pay. The best part about this whole issue is that if companies and the US were to actually cut off trade with these countries, everyone would be begging them to make things in China again because costs were too high.
As countries become more affluent and industrialized, this type of labor and industry moves away in favor of high-tech industry that requires more education than manual work. Yes, there will always be some jobs in the US that are manufacturing oriented, but even if we did bring these factories back to the US they would not increase the job market by much due to a high degree of automation. People in rural areas assume that if we bring back manufacturing to the US, the clock will turn back to 1945 and everyone will have a job again and quality will be stellar. This is not the case, in fact all we will do is speed up the automation of processes if we do this and reduce the needed human intervention in the processes down to a manager and some robot technicians to keep everything running.
If you want to stop making China rich, spend a lot more money on things from niche retailers in the US and then come back and tell us how much you hate Wal-Mart and China. I doubt you will be ready to argue this point once you are spending 5 times as much on those same goods that are making China rich. The free market is an amazing thing and while it has certainly led to the reduction of manufacturing jobs in the US, I would argue we really are not worse off for it in general.
Her former bailiff, for example, says Halverson made him feel like a "houseboy." He says the judge -- who is obese and uses a motorized scooter to get around -- made him put her shoes on her feet, massage her back, cover her with a blanket for naps and make sure her oxygen tank was filled. He says she asked him, "Do you want to worship me from near or afar?"
Halverson also surrounded herself with her own hired guards, saying she did not trust the courthouse security force to protect her. Another time, she allegedly had her husband sworn in so that she could ask him under oath whether he had completed chores at home.
This woman is clearly a winner, she abuses her power as a judge, then tries to blame all of her medical problems on diabetes and arthritis. I wonder if someone has mentioned that if she lost some of the weight she is carrying around she might be better off than having doctors notes presented to the administrative panel that will decide her fate as a judge in Nevada. She clearly is off her rocker and should be thrown off the bench just for having abused the system even before the staff complaints. Time to find another career.
"I have a much broader base to build a winning coalition on," she told USA Today.
The newspaper quoted her as saying that an Associated Press article showed how Sen. Barack Obama's support among "working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again, and how whites in both states who had not completed college were supporting me."
So it is about time someone actually came out and said it. Why does Hillary Clinton think that by having the uneducated white Americans she can win the White House? Last time I checked, this is not really the constituency that I would be courting if I wanted to get to be president. Sure, these are hard working people and they do make up a significant amount of the population but in many ways I would rather say I have the hard working, educated people that want to vote for me.
Personally, if the really smart people in the country think that Obama is doing something right then maybe the rest of us should listen rather than going out and voting for Hillary because she'll be like Bill right? Wrong. Last time I checked, not too many people liked her as first lady, after all she was commonly referred to by people of generation Y as the ice queen or other terms like that. Now in addition to being a completely cold person she has added "will do anything for power" to her list of descriptors.
Are you voting for her because she is going to give you a "gas tax holiday" or because she is going to socialize health care? If so you'd best do a reality check because the gas tax holiday is an empty promise that won't actually amount to anything (this is coming from someone that drive 100 miles every day) and socialized health care is about the worst idea you can imagine. If you want to see why, I would go move to Quebec for a year and try and live with their health care. I hope you don't have cancer or some other serious injury because they will not likely be able to treat you in any reasonable amount of time and when they are ready you likely will already be dead. This coming from someone who's mother had breast cancer and moved away from Canada because there are no oncologists left in the country.
I'm not rich, but I do consider myself to be relatively bright and hard working and after thinking about this election the choice is clear, Barack Obama is the only candidate that actually offers real character and substance to the position of President. Honestly, if he doesn't win the nomination, I think I would actually vote for John McCain just because I can at least come to terms with fiscal conservatism. If you want to be one of the dumb white people that Hillary Clinton says is her constituency then more power to you but I think I will consider myself to be a little brighter than that and vote for a candidate that looks at me as more than a means to an end.
"Can everyone in Washington County have at least one car sitting without tags in their yard? Some people have as many as three or four. Nothing's been done about it. Has the county zoning gone out of business, or don't they have enough help?" - Chewsville
I find it amusing that someone in Chewsville is complaining about cars without tags when across the street they have a giant eyesore of a junk yard staring them in the face. I would focus on getting rid of that before I worried about the cars without tags in someone's yard. Although all of these things do tend to stem from one place, << and this is a very politically incorect statement >> poor, uneducated white people. I came from a place where people liked to put cars up on blocks in their yards and take off the wheels, that was always a plesant sight to see. Growing up and seeing that, I think I can safely say that the people who leave old cars without tags in their yards are the same demographic. It's good to know that I haven't completely lost touch with the place I grew up in.
"I grew up in this, what was onceunty,social a small, family-oriented town, when we had noise ordinances, and we had laws that would make the young people stay off the street and the corners after 11 at night. What happened? We travel quite extensively, to many towns, many states and other countries, but in the U.S. and the other towns that we ... when we have to hear that violent, boisterous rap and hip-hop that shakes our cars, that shakes our houses and makes our blood pressure go up, there's something wrong. Clean up Hagerstown. Enforce it with city codes." - Hagerstown
This text above was recently in the Mail Call section of the Herald Mail and I think this caller is going to get what they are asking for if they can stick it out another 10 or so years in Hagerstown. The city is being cleaned up in the downtown areas slowly but surely. As developer renovate and rebuild many of the older buildings and turn them into modern office space more money will flow into the heart of downtown and spread outwards from there. Once this begins to happen, the city will get cleaner and friendlier as time goes on.
What is going to prove interesting though is what will happen with many of the poor inhabitants of downtown Hagerstown that will be forced out due to higher rent and a clash of cultures. When downtown becomes a trendier place to live, the people with more money will certainly be able to push many of the lower income families out of the city. I think this is both good and bad, it does get rid of some of the less desirable elements that are downtown but it also forces the good hardworking people of the town out of their homes. In many ways this is what has happened in some of the cities back in New Hampshire where I am originally from. There we had old mill towns where the industry died and what was left were a lot of blue collar workers without jobs. This led to a lot of very bad areas of these cities until several years ago when developers decided they could start turning the old mill buildings into high-value loft apartments or office space. This effectively created a divide between halves of these cities and it continues to grow today. This will likely happen to Hagerstown as well, it is just a question of when and to what extent.
Personally, I like Hagerstown and the mix of people it offers. While I would love to see high-tech, higher paying jobs come into the area so I could work here, I moved away from the city to specifically avoid some of the culture that brings with it. I have never been places as unfriendly as the suburbs of Washington DC in Montgomery County. People really don't care about anyone but themselves and they will do anything to get ahead in whatever they are doing at the moment (driving their car, getting in the elevator, going through a door, etc.) even if it means steamrolling over someone else at the same time. Hagerstown really isn't like this, people care more about each other and what they are doing. No one is too busy to hold a door, say hello, or wish you a good day in almost all situations.
So I am torn, Hagerstown is coming to a crossroads and it is going to be interesting to see what types of extremes will be found as events progress. I sincerely hope that the city does not lose the down-to-earth atmosphere that I moved out here for. I don't want to be around the people I moved away from again but I also want to see Hagerstown develop economically and to some degree socially.
I haven't posted in a long time... A really long time, but I promise I have a good excuse. You see my wife and I are buying a house in Hagertucky and it is sucking up a lot of my time.
Actually the house is sort of towards Smithsburg but it does have a Hagertucky address. I needed easy access to I-70 and din't want to go through downtown every morning and afternoon so I am going to take the backroads to get there. Since I work near DC (yest the drive is bad but living out here is worth it to me) adding any more time than necessary is a bad thing as it alread takes me about an hour and twenty minutes to get to work in the morning.
It is a great house though, a nice ranch with a finished basement and almost 3/4 of an acre of yard for the kids to play in when we have them. It's close to my wife's parents that make her happy and it makes me happy as it means I no longer have to live in an apartment and I get to live in a place I love permanently. While it may never be New Hampshire, it is the next best thing and that is OK with me.
So I appologize for being so minimal with the posts lately but hopefully they will pickup again when I am done with this process.
This woman is clearly a winner, she abuses her power as a judge, then tries to blame all of her medical problems on diabetes and arthritis. I wonder if someone has mentioned that if she lost some of the weight she is carrying around she might be better off than having doctors notes presented to the administrative panel that will decide her fate as a judge in Nevada. She clearly is off her rocker and should be thrown off the bench just for having abused the system even before the staff complaints. Time to find another career.