Thursday, December 6, 2012

Winston-Salem Journal LTE TH 12/06/12


Stadium approval

I was sad to hear the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County School Board’s half-hearted approval of the stadium for Reynolds High School to be built near Hanes Park (“School board approves stadium,” Nov. 28). I think the board’s response was purposefully ambiguous — allowing collection of funds but not outright agreeing to build the stadium, thus letting each side believe they had achieved their goals if only partially.

The Dec. 3-Dec. 9 newsletter from Reynolds High School documented the PTSA presidents writing, “Finally, we hope you have heard by now that the WSFCS School Board voted last Tuesday night to allow Home Field Advantage to begin fundraising to build a REAL HOME stadium for RJR!” Misleading, but likely true. I am especially saddened for the West End neighborhood. I wonder how this will affect their home values. The noise and parking issues will decrease their quality of life.
I value the green areas in our town. They have decreased over the decades I have lived here, so what remains is precious to me. Please consider the deficits when deciding to donate to a new stadium or not. I think we owe that to our neighbors.
CARLA FALKENBERG
Winston-Salem
Finish the Thought
Saturday, we asked readers to complete the sentence: “President Obama and Congress will strike a budget deal if …”
“ ...enough moderate Republican congressmen (if there is such a thing as moderate Republican in the House) follow the lead of Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK) to accept President Obama's proposal to extend the tax cut for the 98 percent (for those whose yearly income at $200,000 and below) and negotiate other tax reforms later or the Republican Party realizes that it will be for ever known as the party of the super-rich.”
BOON T. LEE
“ … only when forced. The ideologues will not easily give up their tax deals or vote-buying giveaway programs.
“We have a president who believes in wealth redistribution and a Congress that has been bought for campaign cash so its members can stay in office. When the creditors threaten an ‘intervention’ and stop our credit line, maybe we all will come our senses.
“My parents gave me advice that I think might help:
“For the greedy, remember you can only wear one pair of shoes at a time. For those dependent on the government, if you want a helping hand, look at the end of your wrist.”
KEN HOGLUND
“... ‘obstructionist’ Republicans will simply relent and agree that ‘fair share’ politics means plundering the private sector through increasing taxation, double taxation and overreaching regulations, while the federal government continues its profligate spending and fails to implement serious measures to reform our bankrupt entitlement programs and to reduce our unconscionable debt.
“Surely those pesky ‘obstructionist’ Republicans will also realize that America is in a post-constitutional era in which the president should be granted unilateral authority to raise the debt ceiling.”
DEB PHILLIPS

24 comments:

  1. Finish the thought: My parents advised me: "You cannot truly walk in another man's shoes until you take your own off first. And if his shoes should hurt your feet, they probably hurt his too. If he has no shoes and you have two pairs, give him one of yours."

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  2. Finish the thought. “President Obama and Congress will strike a budget deal if …” IL Duce gets over his autocratic arrogance and realizes that the American system of government is one of checks and balances.

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  3. Ah, breaking news, the Deminted one from SC is resigning his Senate Seat to head the Heritage Foundation.

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    Replies
    1. Ah yes, Jim Demint leaving the Senate to spend more time with his lobbyists.

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    2. Hi Wordly.

      I doubt the lobbyists will spare much time now that he is of no direct use to them.

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    3. Hi Stab, Just put our RSVP in the mail to attend your upcoming nuptials.

      Demint still has connections and connections are important on K street that's why so many congressional staffers go to work on K street. The actual senator will be even better connected.

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    4. Thank you for the explanation and the link, Wordly. I learn so much from the members of this forum. Ideology may differ, but not facts.

      I'm glad you and Ron are coming. Bob will be there, and we have a couple more invitations out, so it may be forum meet and greet, right, left, and center :)

      Delete
  4. Good afternoon folks!
    LTE: Don't care about the issue, but I do feel for those who live near there.

    Finish the thought: This time I don't think it's going to be "if". It's going to be "when", because the markets will force them to act. Even politicians are moved to action when they start seeing 3-5% drops in one day on a consistent basis.

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  5. Aside from sickness or scandal, there is no valid reason to quit on one's constituents. If you weren't going to finish your term, then why run in the first place? The Deminted one shows his true colors: a quitter who puts his self interest above his constituents'. SC and the country are far better off without him. The only problem is that Gov. Haley isn't exactly the brightest bulb, and SC has some of the reddest necks around, so the Deminted one may well be replaced by the Nuttiest one. It's a shame because Charleston and Myrtle Beach are two of my favorite places.

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    Replies
    1. Ah, would that scandals drove pols from office. Leaving office in disgrace went out of vogue when scandal became a matter "between mah family and mah God." Except for Gen. Patraeus, of course.

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    2. Leaving office in disgrace has never been in vogue.

      Thomas Jefferson was the first sitting president to be accused of scandalous behavior in 1803.

      "Ma, Ma, where's my Pa? Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!"

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    3. I believe that rhyme was applied by R's to Grover Cleveland. They also described the Dems as "The party of Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion," a late 19th-century version of "the 47%." It served them no better than his stat served Romney.

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    4. Speaking of scandal: apparently Applachian Trail hiker Mark Sanford is considering whether or not to seek DeMint's Senate seat. Ideally, Gov. Nikki will not be such a dim bulb as to reward this liar with such a plum.

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    5. Grover Cleveland has always been one of my favorite Presidents. He gets elected, then loses, even though he wins the popular vote, then gets elected again. I can just hear him saying "See, I knew you'd miss me." Nixon loved him too.

      Scandal makes the world go round. My friend Fam speaks to a lot of local groups. No matter what the subject, when he opens the floor to questions, more often than not the first query is "How many illegitimate children did RJ Reynolds father?"

      His pat answer is "We don't know, but we're working on it." He is currently hot on the trail of one of them. As the story goes, RJ went hunting up in Surry County around 1885 and was staying with a farmer near Copeland, a little southeast of Dobson. Apparently the daytime hunting was not enough recreation for RJ, so the recreating spilled over into the night and the farmer's daughter ended up pregnant.

      Sounds like an old vaudeville joke, but this is a true story, which builds to a spectacular climax (sorry, couldn't resist that) when the little bastard grows up to be a very successful RJR sales exec, gets involved with a famous teenaged piano virtuoso, makes her a "millionaire", then dies at age 30 something, which leads to even greater scandal, including a possibly fake will and four women coming forth, two claiming to be his widow and two others claiming to be his mother. Maybe a case for King Solomon.

      Of course Fam is working on that end and has coerced me into doing the less glamorous job on how the kid got from birth to employment at RJR. But I don't mind, because at the moment, I am outscoring him.

      Just a few minutes ago, I found the application on behalf of the kid to an orphanage down near where Bob is living dated October 8, 1891, when he was 6 years old, and signed by three prominent members of the local Copeland Masonic Lodge #390. I've already found genealogical info on two of them, so there's a good chance that we will eventually identify the mother. Now he's jealous and I'm having fun.

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  6. RJR Stadium:

    Let those rich white people go over to the hood to play their games. There's nothing better than coming out to your car and finding it on blocks, and your wheels and tires gone.

    Hee Hee....liberals, you gotta love 'em.

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  7. AG Holder refuses to enforce another federal law.
    _________

    Marijuana smokers breathed a puff of relief today as they lit up legally for the first time in Washington state and were not cited, ticketed, or arrested for what is still a federal offense.

    "There are no federal agents out there busting people," Seattle police Sgt. Sean Whitcomb said today, hours after a new state law legalizing pot went into effect.
    ______

    What a classless act AG Holder is.


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  8. (CBS/AP) ORLANDO, Fla. - George Zimmerman is suing NBC, claiming he was defamed by the network when it edited his 911 call to police after the shooting of Trayvon Martin to make it sound like Zimmerman was racist.
    ________

    Naaaaaaaaaah! A liberal network would never try to make a person into a racist, would they?

    Hee Hee....oh brother.

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  9. For a while there, I was afraid that our forum jester was losing his ability to entertain us.

    But the posts immediately above show that he is back on track, still immersed in trivia and irrelevance.

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  10. I don't like Holder, but sending Feds to deal with jubilant potheads is a waste of resources. Perhaps the Feds will give up the lost war on drugs, legalize, regulate, and TAX currently illegal drugs, or at least some of them.

    The description of the drug enforcement efforts as war is apt. The situation along our southern border is a slaughter, and noncombatants are dying in the middle of it, just as in military conflicts, and populations and local economies dislocated, with violence spillover into the US.

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    Replies
    1. Here's some light reading on marijuana Stab. It's clear you've been sitting in the church pew one too many Sundays.

      http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/06/nih-marijuana-effects/1751011/

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    2. I have enjoyed a long love affair with Mexico, and I have friends in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and Cali and one of our favorite things to do for years was to drive down to Mexicali or Nogales or Ciudad Juarez or Piedras Negras or Matamoros, turn the ladies loose in the local markets and find a nice cantina where we could sit out in the sun sipping cervezas, watching the passing senoritas and swapping the same old stories.

      No longer possible, or at least, reasonable…too damned dangerous. Over the years, we made many Mexican friends, a number of whom have become casualties of this foolish war.



      Delete
    3. I see that our court fool has checked in with yet another phony story.

      As always, he has no understanding of the sources he quotes. The National Institute for Drug Abuse (NIDA) needs for everyone to buy their "research", because that is what provides them with lifetime jobs. The National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) conducted a number of studies in the 1990s which shot down, one by one, the earlier NIDA studies. Yet NIDA continues to cite their own results because they have no other choice except to go out of business and onto the public dole.

      I know many people who use marijuana on a regular basis. Most of them are among the highest performing people around. As anyone who works in the real world knows, the most damaging drug by far in the US is alcohol.

      USA Today, like most second rate news organizations, is simply trying to drum up business.

      Of course, someone who has spent their entire life in fantasyland would not know that.

      Delete
  11. Meanwhile, the number of top CEOs who are saying to the Congressional tax fools "go ahead and tax us", the top 2%, has grown well into triple figures. The CEOs of several military contracting companies, among them Northrup Grumman, Pratt & Whitney and TASC, have even suggested serious cuts to the defense budget.

    Tuesday, FedEx Chairman and CEO Fred Smith, an adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign, said that the notion that tax hikes on the richest Americans would kill jobs was simply "mythology."

    Of course, those of us who actually seek real facts and think for ourselves have already known that for over 20 years, but those who hew to the Great Reagan's "voodoo economics" nonsense are still dug in.

    And of course, the tax fools are still talking and behaving like tax fools…they know better than any CEO, or even me.

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