Ends and odds, 2/26/07

Does a landfill in McDowell County need to double the amount of garbage it accepts every year? It would be a boon to local government, because of increased taxes it would bring.

Back in the 1980s, folks in McDowell County were willing to take in nuclear waste if it resulte din jobs. Yes, it was technically known as the Monitored Retrieval and Storage facility, or something like that. It would be a place to collect nuclear waste until it could be sent to its final resting place out west.

Are parts of West Virginia so bad off that they don't mind being known as the dumping groundof the East? I suppose if Cabell County were as bad off as McDowell County -- 60-some percent population loss in 50 years -- I might have a different opinion, but . . .

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Speaking of which, the table games debate in the Legislature might be on more local people's radar screens had the dog track been built near Milton, as originally proposed. Remember when the developers originally wanted the track in Cabell County, but a vote kept it out?

Local opinion of table games might have been different. Or maybe not. We had a vote a while back on gambling at the Frederick and it went down in flames.

This is from The Herald-Dispatch's year-in-review story for 2002:

One proposal this year to help Huntington dig out of its financial hole was casino gambling. Huntington attorney and businessman John Hankins proposed to build a casino within a 650-room resort hotel consisting of the Frederick Building, 940 4th Ave., and other nearby properties owned by Hankins.

In August, The Cabell County Commission placed the issue as a referendum on November's general election ballot. In the months leading up to the election, opposition to casino gambling mounted. In the Nov. 5 general election, the casino referendum was defeated by a 63-to-37 percent margin.

But we didn't have as many gambling-dependent jobs in the county as we would have had if the dog track had been built in Milton.

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The Oscars -- excuse me, the Academy Awards -- were last night. Not that I really care. Knowing who won what is about as important to me as knowing who won an Emmy, a Grammy, a Tony or the American League Rookie of the Year. I just don't care.

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So the Discovery channel says some archaeologists may have found the bones of Jesus. I've been hearing this every 10 years since the early 1970s. It's like when I was over in Israel 20-some years ago. Another American I met said he was walking along one street and every vendor there offered to sell him a piece of the cross.

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Wow. Angelina Jolie has been invited to join the Council on Foreign Relations. Now if she can only get on the Trilateral Commission and maybe become a Rothschild, Bilderburger or a Rockefeller, she can take over the world.

As recently as the 1990s, I knew people consumed with this stuff. And back in the 1970s, I'm pretty sure, there was a book store in Parkersburg that featured these conspiracy theory books. I remember one in a window, "Henry Kissinger, Soviet Agent."