Willing to work on the Wednesday OPEN thread
Shot by Dan at Chocolate Paper on Market Street
“When a man tells you that he got rich through hard work, ask him: ‘Whose?’ “
Don Marquis
March 6, 2013 - 10:00 AM
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Looking for something to do this holiday weekend? See our picks for some fun local events.
March 6, 2013 - 10:00 AM
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Saturday, May 25, 2013
THE ROANOKE TIMES
Am I the only one who feels like this website is getting worse? I can no longer navigate from thread to thread within a blog at all. I had to X out of the entire RT site and come back in just to get to this. It’s frustrating.
Maureen drops a three-snaps-in-a-Z-formation pounding on Little Vice Ricky Brucie:
“Maybe if he’d paid more attention to the actual war, conducted with a phony casus belli in a country where we did not understand the culture, he wouldn’t have propelled America into two more Vietnams.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/06/opinion/dowd-repent-dick-cheney.html?smid=pl-share
Two syllables: Awe-some.
Disclaimer: Shameless self-promotion incoming: Some of you folks here who like to think, ponder and debate, may really enjoy Gamut’s production of Waiting for Godot which runs Thursday – Saturday of this week. Here is a link to the review: http://www.roanoke.com/living/arts/1744986-12/community-theater-review-godot-is-one-of-gamuts.html
If you are interested in tickets and more info, email me at gamuttheatre@gmail.com. Forget your preconceived notions about this play and give our Godot a chance!
Okay, promo is now concluded. After the show closes though, I believe a celebrate spring lunch gathering will be in order. I’ll be shooting out an email to start trying to set a date. For any of you who aren’t on my email list, let me know to add you by emailing misfitmiriam@gmail.com.
Dan, you certainly know how to start the conversation. I know a couple of people here in Roanoke who would be considered rich by some. Both of these folks left careers in corporate America and started businesses from scratch. They are among the hardest working people I know. In addition, they were willing to take the risks necessary to start their businesses, and had the intelligence and dedication to make them succeed. So in these two cases, I submit, the answer is “their own hard work.”
Miriam. Good luck with the production!
Kristen
I have noticed this new web site seems to respond slower. It seems to take forever to post comments.
Connectivity and links are terrible now!
Hope you guys are not done!
Hey Kristen and old blue, yep, me too. I hope that can be fixed.
On the positive side, the General Assembly’s recent passage of the Transportation Bill, which the Governor has promised to sign, means that Roanoke should get Amtrak service faster, which should spur 1) more vacation travelers and 2) more companies locating in Roanoke, which will be even more convenient to the DC area and its three airports, with cheaper airline fares.
A Mar 4, 2013, Wash Post story (Errin Haines) stated that:
“The bond-rating firm [Moody's] reports in its U.S. Public Finance Weekly Credit Outlook that the funding plan — expected to generate as much as $3.5 billion in additional revenue for transportation over the next five years — makes Virginia ‘the first state to address stagnant gas tax collections that have been increasingly insufficient to meet transportation funding needs, a problem faced by many states as they, consumers and automakers embrace higher fuel efficiency standards.’”
Donut Miser, great link. Perhaps the only thing that will save GWB from a legacy of “worst President ever” is the realization that Cheney and Rumsfeld manipulated poor “Dubya,” or as Molly Ivins called him, “Shrub.”
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I do feel sympathy of GWHB. He was a decent man and a tireless public servant who was engulfed by the rise of moral conservatism ignited by Reagan. To watch his son be so obviously inept must be haunting to this day.
Hey Dan Peacock, I enjoyed your post, particularly the part from the U.S. Public Finance Weekly Credit outlook concerning Virginia’s lead in raising revenue for transportation. Thanks for sharing that little tidbit.
I’m unhappy with the way the General Assembly raised the transportation money. We were only in this jam at all because they irresponsibly have not raised the gas tax in a quarter of a century. They should have raised that a dime and indexed it, which would have bought them some time, and then committed themselves to finding a solution to get reasonable road revenue from hybrids and electric vehicles.
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What they did instead was unnecessarily complex and it may be unconstitutional.
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In bread-making terms, they started from scratch to bake a loaf of sourdough when they could have bought a better one for $4 at On the Rise.
We got more than 11 inches of snow in Plymouth overnight and all the schools, including mine, are closed today. After I got my driveway cleared and then cleaned up myself, I had some time to did into some old documents I came across not long ago. Doing that digging led me to the link below. It discusses the Republican Party in which I was reared. Some of you younger folks who call yourself Republicans would do well to study carefully the Platforms of the mid 20th century Republican Party to see what your party stood for and how those beliefs and ideas changed America. It was a very different party than it is today. Sadly so.
http://www.deliberatelyconsidered.com/2012/08/back-to-the-future-a-party-platform/
I’m sure Dan will disagree with this but, McDonnell’s original plan for transportation made more sense, would have been more effective and would not be facing the constitutional challenges of the weirdness the GA put forth. The problem was, too many wanted to reject it simply because it came from McDonnell.
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ps- the new site does stink pretty bad right now. Let’s hope it improves as it moves out of Beta status
Ron, what an excellent link. What struck me upon my initial reading was the extent to which the platform stated forward leaning goals, statements of what the Republican Party was for. Our political process is badly broken, and no one in power for either party seems interested in doing anything to repair the damage. I dearly hope that young conservatives and liberals will study the party platforms of the past as a means to find a bipartisan way forward.
Chuck,
McDonnell’s original plan did not make more sense than adding 10 cents to the gas tax and indexng it. These type of user-fee taxes, while imperfect, are a classically “conservative” approach that actually make sense, and that’s why I agree with them.
Dan Casey and Chuck:
The Transportation Bill, as passed in the General Assembly, would not have been my first choice. However, the Governor’s courage is putting something on the table was a step in the right direction and a result far better than anything seen in decades. The discussion showed wide support over the state to find a solution to the state’s transportation crisis.
Also, in my opinion, the most under reported transportation story of the year, especially by the Washington Post, is that support for Amtrak Regional Trains is even greater among both conservatives and liberals than for roads. All major proposals had funding for passenger rail. In FY 2012, according to official Amtrak figures, Virginia led the nation in growth on state-supported Amtrak trains, and Roanoke was both a driver in that growth and will be the state’s next recipient of that growth. The nation’s 2nd fastest growing state-supported train, which the Smart Way Connector Bus fed was the “Lynchburg Train”. The 3rd fastest growing state-supported train was the DC to Newport News Train.
On Dec 12, Amtrak returned to Norfolk after 35 years and one year ahead of schedule because the decision makers (N & S, Norfolk, and Amtrak) had broad support and were inspired by the successes of the “Lynchburg and Newport News Trains” and Roanoke’s Connector Bus, which only 2 years ago had been determined in separate “official ridership studies” to be “dead on arrival”.
Even if ruled unconstitutional, the Transportation Bill marks a turning point in the discussion. Next year, we are likely to have a Democratic Governor and a General Assembly even more willing to fix any Constitutional bumps.
Hey Dan, Here’s one for ya:
At what point does a reporter of news leave being a reporter of news, and venture over to the side of opinion journalism? I raise the question because I found the headline article in Sunday’s Roanoke Times (“Budget crisis not first with backlash”) to be much more “opinion” than “news”.
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The writer, an AP guy by the name of Tom Raum, says thusly, “And history shows a long trail of unintended consequences from government actions–or inaction…” From there, Raum goes on to place a “contributory blame for the 2007-2009 recession on Roanold Reagan!
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To whit: “President Reagan’s ambitious 1986 overhaul of the tax code simplified taxes and closed many loopholes, including repealing the popular tax deduction for credit card-interest. Then people started borrowing heavily against their equity in their homes; That interest was still deductible.”
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Dan, here’s where it gets REALLY good:
“But the practice eventually helped put millions of home-owners under water on their mortgages when the housing bubble burst, contributing to the 2007-09 recession.”
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Dan, is that reporting, or is it positing an unfounded opinion?
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Is this an example of a writer writing merely to please his editors, who are clearly folks who like to believe that Ronald Reagan’s …”failure?… to do away with the tax-deduction for mortgage interest in 1986″ …somehow deserves being fingered as a contributor to the 2007-2009 recession?
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This is a clear example of liberal writers being given carte blanche by their partisan lib editors to fill their “stories” with inaccurate and inapplicable partisan blame. If Raum wanted to add a blurb pertaining to a LEGITIMATE government action or inaction which unintentionally contributed to the 2007-2009 recession, he could have at least included Bill Clinton’s signing of the Gram-Leach-Bliley Act in 1999.
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It’s beyond laughable!
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Here’s the link, I think. I was not able to find a link to the article on the Roanoke Times’ website….even though the article was published on page one of the Roanoke Time’s Sunday, March 3, 2013, edition.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/04/sequestration-airports_n_2807667.html?utm_hp_ref=politics
Het Dan,
Here’s the correct link.
The one above is interesting, but not pertaining to the topic, and was not written by Tom Baum.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_BUDGET_BATTLE_UNINTENDED_CONSEQUENCES?SITE=GAGAI&SECTION=WEATHER&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Kristen, when I bring up an RT blog, after reading through one thread, I click on a back arrow to get to the original blog page where all the current threads are listed. Hopefully they will be able to post the listing of the most current threads on the right side of the page again, like it used to be.
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It is slower now.
If you right-click on a blog post to open in a new tab, you can read the post in a new tab then close it and be back to the original blog page.
“Am I the only one who feels like this website is getting worse? ‘
-Kristen
My 2 cents. Totally underwhelmed by this rollout. More features now work on Mac, but toggling back and forth through individual threads is a pain. Agree with Debbie, we need the current threads and recent comments boxes back on the right side of the page. This new format just clutters things up with more advertising. I also notice there are fewer posts, between the new format and the piles of troll dung I’m not surprised.
Because of the snow day today, I’ve had some time to dig around and find what I think is some interesting stuff. Others may disagree. Below are two links that outline several everyday things that are harder to do than getting a gun. Some are absurd, sort of like not requiring federal background checks for all gun purchases, others are very serious. Enjoy!
http://www.buzzfeed.com/friendsofdemandaplan/10-things-that-are-harder-to-do-than-buying-a-gun
http://tv.msnbc.com/2013/01/10/7-things-harder-to-do-than-buy-a-gun/
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10022450850
Re: Kristen 10:28 am
Plus one here.
Earlier, someone said that saving money and time by dumping a poorly developed beta product on the customer base was OK.
I could not disagree more. It is bad IT, bad management, bad marketing, IMHO.
Rand Paul is a conspiracy nut but at least he has the cojones to conduct a filibuster the way it is supposed to be conducted. If the Senate enforced this rule as the condition for every filibuster the amount of obstructionism would shrink significantly.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/rand-paul-filibusters-john-brennan-nomination-184254240–politics.html
By the way folks, my Thursday column is about — guess what — guns! But it’s not exactly what you might think. . . .
I had an historical/factual gun question I needed answered along the way, and John Wilburn graciously provided the answer.
I’m not finding the beta version to be as difficult to navigate as some of you seem to be. But I don’t see it as a significant improvement over what we already had. I’m more dissatisfied with the news and opinion sections than I am with the blogs at this point. I think they are more poorly organized. I see no reason for the change unless there were going to be significant improvements. This appears just to be change for the sake of change.
Dan,
What’s your take on the Roanoke Times blaming Ronald Reagan in Sundays’ front page head-lined article, for the housing crisis of 2007-2009?
hey wayne,
you are forgetting that the RTs is a proprietary corporation, and I just “betcha” that cost was a decision driver. In other words, screw the folks who are playing for free. And, if they’d just come out and SAY that, I’d be ok with it.
improvements? are you serious? improvements for who?
Re: Dan Casey at 5:30 pm
Work-arounds are not fixes.
There should have been a true beta (volunteers or professional testers) and system testing to identify and fix bugs and then an adequate second round of systems analysis and programing.
hey wayne,
well, sheesh. you, i, and Rand Paul all seem to agree with something! I agree with what you say about the process, whole-heartedly!
Ears burning indeed……
RIP Alvin Lee.
Art Hill, I sure appreciate you informing us of the passing of Alvin Lee. Underneath the excess, some genuine musicality. I’ve long regretted that I passed up a chance to see him in a club date with Mick Taylor in Richmond once, and although it was during the time when both could be too much in their cups (or spoons?), it was said to have been a great show. I thought he’d been living in Spain in recent years, but the story didn’t seem to mention where he died.
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Life is funny, skies are sunny, bees make honey, who needs money, monopoly…
#21 That’ll work for me..