The Piedmont Triad folks who were arrested this summer and charged with planning terrorist attacks may have been targeting the Quantico Marine Corps base in Virginia. Before we moved here to the Triad we lived about ten minutes away from Quantico, close enough that you could hear them training sometimes. (We learned pretty quickly how to tell the difference between artillery and thunder).
The Freakonomics blog has a post about the Obama administration's decision to dramatically increase fuel economy standards. I found this part the most interesting:
The new regulations mandate that by 2016 the fuel economy of new cars and light trucks sold in the U.S. increase to a combined city/highway m.p.g. of 35.5, up from about 27.9 under today’s CAFE standards.
Although hybrids and electric vehicles can help automakers meet these targets, enough efficiency can be reaped with internal combustion autos. This can come through improvements to things like tires, engines (e.g. smaller ones with turbocharging), air conditioning, transmissions, and vehicle weight. The administration estimates that this will cost $1,100 per vehicle but that the improvements will pay for themselves with $3,000 in fuel savings over the life of the car.
This caught my attention because my wife just returned from a trip to Richmond and was in awe that our eight year old Saturn got 38 miles to the gallon for the trip. I've been driving the Saturn back and forth to Greensboro pretty much every day and I'm averaging about 32 miles a gallon even with city driving. My Mom has a hybrid and she gets in the 40s per gallon, which is obviously better, but our car's been paid off for years and (knock on wood) hasn't needed any extensive work done on it.
Only negative to the Saturn: I'm 6'2" and when I get in and out of it I look like a circus clown, but that's a small price to pay for keeping my gas tab down.
Want some evidence that people are p-o'd at the ownership of the Winston-Salem Dash, a venerable Carolina League franchise that's been an integral part of Winston-Salem summers for decades? Just check out this story about the Dash having the best season they've had in years on the field yet only averaging 600-700 butts in seats per game. Even with the new stadium I'm wondering how realistic it is to expect an average of 4,000 fans per game which is what the powers that be say is necessary for the financing of the stadium to work.
The following thoughts aren't mine, they were emailed to me by fellow Lewisville-ian Dwight and I thought they were well worth sharing (with his permission):
This is in reference to your comments about the downtown baseball stadium. As a couple of Lewisville residents, aren’t we glad to be distanced (albeit only a few yards) from those dodos in Winston-Salem.
I have recently enjoyed watching the College Baseball World Series on ESPN and was very interested in the commentator’s take on the new TD Ameritrade Park soon to replace Rosenblatt Field as the site of the College World Series. As you would expect, they said, “It’s going to be a beautiful facility”, but mostly they bemoaned the loss of a very special landmark.
Well, does that sound familiar? We (and yes, I include us among the dodos because Forsyth County residents have a stake in this fiasco as well) had a very special landmark in Ernie Shore Field but now it is gone.
All this prompted me to google Omaha, Nebraska for info on the financing of their new baseball facility. I have to admit that I am not the sleuth that I would like to be, but I did learn that their new facility is expected to cost $120 Million and will have a capacity of 25,000 and TD Ameritrade is paying $20 M for naming rights. The remainder (I think) will be financed by public bonds administered by a special Commission. WOW! Why didn’t we think of that? We have the successful WSFC Utilities Commission and the unsuccessful Tanglewood Park Authority as guides. In my opinion, The Utility Commission was successful because it functioned as an independent Commission staffed with competent people (only recently have they seen revenue decline because local municipalities have been using solid waste fees to fund their recycling efforts). The Tanglewood Park Authority was never successful because it was never “independent” of elected officials.
So where are we?
Omaha gets a new 25000 capacity stadium.
We get a 5000 capacity stadium.
Omaha pays $120M minus $20M. ($4000 per seat)
We pay $42M (and rising). ($8000 per seat and rising)
Omaha owns their stadium when completed.
We have to wait 25 years for a deed (good luck Jon, I won’t be around then).
Omaha will have a watchdog if they appoint competent people to the Commission.
We have Billy Prim.
Jon, I have chosen to send this comment to you via e-mail because it is somewhat critical of elected officials and I do not feel comfortable using your site for my agenda.
You have my permission to post this comment on your sit or not as you choose. As always, thank you for an interesting (and provocative) site.
Dwight
Update 6/15/09: Definitely read the links provided in the comments below, which lead to pieces that ask some hard questions. This reminds me of why blogs and comments are so important!
A Winston-Salem blogger lives near the RJR building downtown and noticed some hand made signs hanging in the lobby window. Looks like management let their people vent some steam about the state's recent regulatory moves. Pics here.
In today's media environment there's no shortage of opinion, heck even I have one, but that also means there's a glut of what I call "idiocrity." Exhibit A comes from Mark Krikorian, a contributor at a publication that should know better, namely the National Review. First he wonders why we should pronounce President Obama's first Supreme Court justice nominee's name with the proper Spanish pronunciation, which apparently is the way she wants it to be pronounced, even though it's not the "natural English pronunciation." Then he follows up that post with more "logic":
Deferring to people's own pronunciation of their names should obviously be our first inclination, but there ought to be limits. Putting the emphasis on the final syllable of Sotomayor is unnatural in English (which is why the president stopped doing it after the first time at his press conference), unlike my correspondent's simple preference for a monophthong over a diphthong, and insisting on an unnatural pronunciation is something we shouldn't be giving in to…
This may seem like carping, but it's not. Part of our success in assimilation has been to leave whole areas of culture up to the individual, so that newcomers have whatever cuisine or religion or so on they want, limiting the demand for conformity to a smaller field than most other places would. But one of the areas where conformity is appropriate is how your new countrymen say your name, since that's not something the rest of us can just ignore, unlike what church you go to or what you eat for lunch. And there are basically two options — the newcomer adapts to us, or we adapt to him. And multiculturalism means there's a lot more of the latter going on than there should be.
To this I say, "Huh?" I need only look at my own experience to say that this is just plain stupid. My last name is Lowder and it's proper pronunciation makes it rhyme with "chowder", but before most people hear my name pronounced they assume that the first syllable rhymes with "hoe". Using this guy's "logic" my family, which has been in North Carolina for over a couple of hundred years, has been forcing our neighbors to speak unnaturally for generations thus I guess we're not properly assimilated. How un-American of us! I guess I should also apologize for my parents dropping the "h" from John.
I think Lex is right; Buckley's legacy is tarnished by this kind of writing.
The Sunlight Foundation has released a funny yet meaningless report about CongressCritters' favorite words. Their Capitol Words project takes speeches recorded in the Congressional Record to calculate the frequency of specific words used by each member of Congress. When I clicked on North Carolina on their interactive map I found out the following:
Truliant Federal Credit Union surveyed its members to see how the recession has affected their behavior and over 3,000 shared their thoughts. Some of the results are highlighted in this press release. Anyone who's seen all the restaurants shuttered recently won't be surprised by this one:
Q: If you have cut back on spending, what areas are most affected?
73% – Dining Out
70% – Entertainment
64% – Travel, vacations
59% – Clothing
55% – Home Electronics
45% – Auto (buying/leasing a new vehicle, repairs)
35% – Home Appliances
22% – Cell Phones and/or calling plans
5% – Other
From the “other” category, popular items that were mentioned include groceries, medications, food and club memberships. Another trend that the “other” category highlighted is that more of Truliant’s member-owners are starting to purchase generic products to help them save money.
Ed Cone points to an article on the front page of the Washington Post that highlights the dire straits that many (25%) of North Carolinians are in with health care. Literally 1/4 of all adult North Carolinians, or 1.8 million people, are living without health insurance and an additional 9% are underinsured.
Health insurance has become exorbitantly expensive. Insurance companies continue to raise premiums while at the same time reducing benefits. They can do this with impunity because they know that policy holders have no other choice but to pay what they demand, or choose to go without coverage. They also refuse to increase payments for services, continuing to pocket the growing difference. More and more people are taking the gamble and choosing to go without coverage.
I can tell you from our family's perspective it's hard to argue with him. When we're spending over $8,000 a year on premiums alone, and we're doing pretty well compared to other families we've talked to, then you know there's something out of whack with the system. It's also easy to understand how so many people end up having to live without insurance in the first place.
Befuddled 