Odds and ends, 8/3/07

Coming to a Kentucky back road far from you (for now)...

LEXINGTON, Ky. (AP) — Officials in a southern Kentucky community are considering a proposal that would make it legal to ride all-terrain vehicles on county roads.

The Wayne County Fiscal Court took up the measure after a magistrate submitted a petition signed by a few hundred people, Judge-Executive Greg Rankin said.

Under the proposal, ATVs could be ridden on county roads by those with valid driver’s licenses. Vehicles would be required to have a headlight and two taillights, and could be operated only during daylight hours. The proposal could be up for a vote by Aug. 9, Rankin said.

Kentucky law essentially bans ATVs from paved roads, but the law contains a provision that allows cities or counties to designate roads within their jurisdictions for legal ATV riding.

Maybe we should clue them in on the kinds of discussions and accidents we have here in southern West Virginia. But they probably know already.


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It's the Big 3 again. Cerberus took over Chrysler from DaimlerChrysler today. Some marriages just don't work, I guess.

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The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is accepting applications to develop hydropower at the Gallipolis Locks and Dam (now known as the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam) on the Ohio River about 30 miles north of downtown Huntington. This article doesn't specify, but I assume they're talking putting the power plant in the the old locks that were taken out of service in the late 1980s.

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A reader writes:

You and I had a brief blog conversation a few weeks ago about John Edwards and the source of his campaign donations. I saw this interesting article in the Washington Post yesterday that sheds some more light on that subject. It implies, but does not go so far as to state, that his attorney donations are almost exclusively from plaintiffs' trial lawyers - not a good thing, in my opinion:

You can see the article here. It's not the Washington Post, but it's still the same AP story.


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Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland wants all Ohio state-run universities to be under a common bureaucracy, er, management. That could be good, or it could be another useless layer of administrators. The real test will be in how well students benefit, of course.

Perhaps some schools could specialize in certain disciplines. Ohio in communications, THE! Ohio State University for medical research, etc. But we don't know. They're saying THE! OSU will still e the state's flagship school for research, whatever that means. I just hope it doesn't mean research at other schools will be stifled.


Unless some significant changes are made to improve education while holding down cost, Strickland's changes will merely be adding another look-good, do-little layer of bureaucrats, and Ohio's higher ed system sure doesn't need that.

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Should some people pay more for their car insurance simply because they have bad credit? Insurance companies say there is a correlation between credit scores and insurance claims, and they're using that to drive up premiums for some people.

Michelle Singletary of the Washington Post has more here.

My wife’s husband has not been at fault in an accident since 1983, and that was when he backed into his sister’s car in his own driveway. But say he misses a couple of credit card payments one month when medical and education expenses roll in and money gets tight. Does that mean he is more of a risk to file an auto insurance claim, meaning he should pay higher rates?

I've heard of companies doing credit checks when they're about to hire employees, but I'm not sure I like the idea of linking credit reports and car insurance premiums.

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Speaking of which, I have a question about universal, government-operated health care. Right now, some private employers require smokers to pay an additional fee for their health insurance. Would government require smokers to pay higher fees or taxes to cover their health insurance costs? It wouldn't stop with tobacco. There are alcohol, soft drinks, fatty foods, riding motorcycles with helmets and all sorts of things we could pay surcharges for.

Think of it as a full-employment-for-lobbyists program.