Odds and ends 8/31/07 (already?)

As of this morning, my 1996 Jeep Cherokee has 216,146.8 miles on it. I say that as an intro to this news release, which is based on the latest edition of Consumer Reports magazine:

YONKERS, NY — With proper care, many of today’s cars can last 200,000 miles or more, and owners seeking to limit repair costs by trading in their vehicle every three to five years may lose out on thousands of savings, says Consumer Reports October issue.

Consumer Reports 2007 Annual Auto Online Survey identified 6,769 readers with 200,000 miles or more on their vehicles’ odometers. The report featured accounts that ran the gamut of make and model, including a ‘95 Honda Civic with 227,000 miles, a ‘90 Lexus LS400 with 332,000 miles and a West Virginia family’s 1994 Ford Ranger pickup with an impressive 488,000 miles.

When comparing the costs of buying and keeping a car for 225,000 miles over 15 years to buying and financing an identical model every five years, CR found the savings could be more than the original purchase price of the vehicle—and even greater if the savings were invested.

I hate buying cars. I want every one of mine to get at leat 150,000 miles. If memory serves -- and this is back to my childhood, so please correct me if I'm wrong -- about 30 or 40 years ago it was an accomplishment to get a car to 100,000 miles. If they didn't break down, they rusted out. But now it should be a lot easier to get 150K or 200K out of a car.

Back in April, when I was getting new plates for the Jeep, I proudly told the person at the DMV counted that I had 200,000 miles on it. She told me her Pontiac has more than 300,000 miles. My face hurt when I dropped it and it hit the floor.

I want to get another three or four years out of the Jeep. It drives like a truck and it's not nearly as comfortable as a car, but it's paid for.

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I know this isn't funny, but when I read the first paragraph of this AP article, I wanted to post it under the headline "Smoking kills."

NEW CONCORD, Ohio (AP) — A Greyhound bus passenger was struck by a car and killed early Friday after stepping off a disabled bus for a smoke along Interstate 70 in eastern Ohio, the State Highway Patrol said.

The bus broke down and the driver got off to put out some warning signs. He told the riders to stay on the bus, but several got off to have a smoke.

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From the Gallipolis Daily Tribune:

RIO GRANDE - Area residents with science degrees or middle childhood science teaching licenses now have an opportunity to earn licenses to teach high school and junior high science in just one year, without paying any tuition.

The University of Rio Grande/Rio Grande Community College has received grant funding through the Ohio Department of Education, in collaboration with the Ohio Board of Regents, to offer this program for science teachers.

Sangeeta Gulati, assistant professor in the Bunce School of Education at Rio Grande, explained that there is a statewide and national shortage of science teachers. The Ohio Core Program is a statewide initiative to increase the number of math and science teachers in the state.

A lot of us have said such a program is needed. Now at least one area has it. Let's see how many people sign up.

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According to an article in the Point Pleasant Register, the Mason County Board of Education is considering a policy requiring school visitors to leave their photo IDs with the main office while they are in the building. They can pick up their IDs when they leave.

Bad idea. Why would I leave my drivers license with a stranger for a while? I mean, does anyone out there know of any other place that confiscates your drivers license when you enter the premises?

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"Man rams police station with stolen bulldozer"

How can you not read a story with a headline like that?

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And one thing before the weekend:

Why does Marshall prefer Conference USA to the Mid-American Conference?

In 2003-04, Marshall’s distribution from the MAC was $207,342.

In 2005-06, its distribution from C-USA was $1,638,535.

I have not yet obtained figures on what the distribution from the MAC likely would have been in 05-06 had Marshall stayed put there.

Climate change: A political shoutfest

This is from a lecture delivered at Hillsdale College on June 30 by S. Fred Singer, among other things a professor emeritus of environmental sceinces at the University of Virginia:

IN THE PAST few years there has been increasing concern about global climate change on the part of the media, politicians, and the public. It has been stimulated by the idea that human activities may influence global climate adversely and that therefore corrective action is required on the part of governments. Recent evidence suggests that this concern is misplaced. Human activities are not influencing the global climate in a perceptible way. Climate will continue to change, as it always has in the past, warming and cooling on different time scales and for different reasons, regardless of human action. I would also argue that—should it occur—a modest warming would be on the whole beneficial.

This is not to say that we don’t face a serious problem. But the problem is political. Because of the mistaken idea that governments can and must do something about climate, pressures are building that have the potential of distorting energy policies in a way that will severely damage national economies, decrease standards of living, and increase poverty. This misdirection of resources will adversely affect human health and welfare in industrialized nations, and even more in developing nations. Thus it could well lead to increased social tensions within nations and conflict between them.

Agree or disagree with Singer's conclusions, it's hard to disagree with the second sentence of the second paragraph.

Global warming ceased being a scientific matter or a social problem a long time ago. It's a political one. As with most political debates, people are free to choose whatever facts fit their biases and prejudices. Claiming the moral high ground is more important than determining the truth. Namecalling replaces reasoned thought. Shouting replaces rational discussion. The stakes are too high to admit you might be wrong. That's particularly true when the topic is so complicated that few of us understand what is really happening.

Case in point: For all I know, a slight increase in temperatures worldwide would be beneficial. (It still depends on the distribution of the increase in temperatures, not in the increase in average temperature worldwide, but we'll save that for later.). Somewhere I read that someone was concerned that a great enough increase in arctic regions would release a lot of methane that is stored in the tundra. Such a release would trigger catastrophic warming.

Assuming I remembered that argument correctly, I have to say I have no idea what that "tipping point" would be. And I cannot adequately judge whether that argument is reliable. All I can do is continue my own research and guard against people on one side or the other who seek to recruit me to their cause.

UPDATE: Here is a piece about the arctic methane pocket. I have not checked into the author's background yet. I merely offer this for people who want to read more.

The gang that couldn't keep track of and count ballots

So 15 more uncounted ballots were found in Kanawha County this morning during the table games vote recount.

Will more be found as the day goes on? Will somone bother to ask why no one appears to have reconciled the number of votes cast with the number of people who voted? That should have shown that 15 ballots were missing. Will someone bother to ask how all this could happen?

What will Secretary of State Betty Ireland say? What surprise will come out of the Kanawha County clerk's office next?

This could get interesting.

Better them than us.

UPDATE: The AP says only 14 extra ballots were found, and when they were counted, the antis gained three votes. Another vote was gained somewhere, giving the antis a neg gain of four, which still left them far, far behind. So it's over.

But the Kanawha County Clerk will have a black eye over this one as long as she's in office. And you can't help but wonder what this says about the election as a whole.

The Big Bottom

If you live in the Huntington-Ashland metro area and your household has total income of $50,000 a year or more, that puts you in the top third.

Nationally, a $50,000 total household income would put you closer to the middle.

That one fact shows how far behind the Tri-State lags behind the rest of the nation economically.

Oh, it’s a little worse in the Charleston metro area. A $50,000 household income puts you in the top 35 percent of households compared with the top 33 percent in Huntington-Ashland.

Here at The Herald-Dispatch, we call it the “Big Bottom.” For a variety of reasons, this region has a greater proportion of households on the bottom of the income ladder and fewer at the top.

According to statistics released by the U.S. Census Bureau today, about 21.5 percent of households in the Huntington-Ashland metro area have income of $14,999 a year or less, vs. 13.9 percent nationally. Cabell County’s numbers tend to mirror those of the metro area as a whole. That are consists of Cabell and Wayne counties in West Virginia, Lawrence County in Ohio and Boyd and Greenup counties in Kentucky.

In West Virginia’s 3rd Congressional District, which covers the southern part of the state and includes Cabell and Wayne counties, $50,000 would put your household in the top 29.5 percent.

(I'll try to post a spreadsheet tomorrow).

Numbers in the Charleston metro area — Kanawha, Putnam, Lincoln, Boone and Clay counties — show slightly more people in the middle income bracket — $25,000 to $75,000 than in Huntington-Ashland, but not by a significant amount.

What does this mean? When half your households bring in less than $50,000 a year in wages, interest, investment income, transfer payments and other sources of money, who can buy and restore vacant and dilapidated houses? Who has money to invest in public infrastructure? Who can invest enough in a small business to make it grow?

This should be discussed in every election and in every discussion of social problems facing this area. And it should be considered when you look around and notice

But this is Huntington, where people blame old money for all the city's ills and they don't trust new money. When Tim Rollins announced plans to build Pullman Square, there was a group of people in town that didn't want his new money here. They were afraid he was coming here to make a -- gasp! -- profit.

What's the answer? There is no one answer. It's a series of answers. I do know that what we're doing isn't working. We need a better climate for business and -- this is the hard part -- more human capital. Until external forces drive some of that human capital this way, I don't see things improving, because our internal assets just aren't enough.

Math and science academy at Marshall?

In one conversation early this year, Stephen Kopp, president of Marshall University, said he would like to establish a math and science academy on the Marshall campus for high school students. It wouldn't be a residential academy. Students would come from high schools in this general area. But it would be a place for gifted students to study on a college campus in a college atmosphere.

Kentucky has just started its residential academy on the campus of Western Kentucky University at Bowling Green, bringing memories of Kopp's dream.

It's obviously not a high or public priority for Kopp, as he has talked about it little in the subsequent months. But it's worth pursuing.

I am obese?

The AP wire is going crazy today with stories about how obesity is on the increase in the US.

The study was based on phone surveys in which people were asked their height and weight. From that, their body mass index was calculated. A BMI over 29.5 was considered obese.

So I found a BMI calculator. I said my height is 5-11.5 and my weight is 218. The calculator determined my BMI at 30.0, meaning I am obese.

I'll grant you that I have a little bigger belly than I had at age 25, but I don't consider myself obese. Look at the picture that goes with this blog. Does that guy look obese to you, or is he in denial?

It makes me wonder what the people who do these studies are trying to sell.

Know what I mean?

The value of school

A reader suggests an idea for a topic. First, her message:

Thought this little editorial might offer some different types of thoughts for your blog:

http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/homeschool/columnists/gatto/v8i3_richest.shtml

I read one of the author's books earlier this year and he really made me look at education differently.

Perhaps it's something to discuss on your blog.

anyway, keep up the good work.

Picking a passage from this link to summarize it:

Mass college attendance once served America and Canada very well, but that time is gone and good riddance. It dampened down the inventive, entrepreneurial spirit in the interests of habit-training and attitude-adjustment.

We have the most efficient management in the world at a very high price: Mutilating the public imagination, vesting it in a handful of corporations. School was the factory producing incomplete human beings who were easy to manage. It worked for a century to produce national riches and a citizenry increasingly poor in spirit.

Gates is correct: North America faces an emergency. Vested interests will have to be set aside for the common good. The biggest obstacle blocking progress is the shape of our forced institutional schooling and its weapons of mass destruction.

My thoughts, expressed in an e-mail to the writer that I sent just today:

I can accept part of the premise of this piece, but not all.

I know more dropouts who didn't make it than dropouts who turned into a Bill Gates or a William Faulkner. In fact, I never met Gates or Faulkner.

I'm glad my wife's OB/GYN wasn't a college dropout when it became clear our first child would have to be born by C section. I'm glad the engineer who designed the car I drive went to college. And I bet Bill Gates wants most of his software engineers to have some sort of degree.

Have you ever heard the old saying "the exception proves the rule"? The way most people use that saying, it's nonsense. The exception doesn't "prove" the rule. The exception disproves the rule. The only way that saying makes sense is if you use the archaic meaning of "prove," which is "test." What appears to be an exception really does test a rule. The rule still applies: People are better off with more education.

You can't say Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are proof that my kids would be wasting their time in college. Maybe they would. It all depends on what career paths they choose.

It's like a pointless debate going on over on the HD user forums. One person commits a heinous act, therefore the religion that person professes is totally discredited. Do I have to explain the fallacy in that logic? But I hear it all the time.

A small cleanup project

Behind the burned-out Ratcliff Place building in downtown Huntington is a small parking lot. The last I heard, the lot is owned by Johnson Memorial United Methodist Church, which is across 10th Street. Sometime this summer, the lot became a hangout for a group of adults. Often when I would walk by, there would be a half dozen or so people there with recliners, book shelves and I don't know what else. Parts of the lot became covered in litter -- plastic drink cups, water bottles, glass beer bottles. It was a mess. One person told me some of the litter consisted of human waste wrapped in toilet paper. I did not verify that one myself.

One day last week, an article in The Herald-Dispatch mentioned how the lot had become a hangout. That day, I walked past as two men were stringing a steel cable across the entrace of the lot. Hanging from the cable were signs with messages such as "No Trespassing." That day, the congregating of people on the lot ended.

This morning I walked past, and someone had removed the litter. It had to be the cleanest parking lot in Huntington.

Small victories like these count.

Odds and ends, 8/24/07

Headline on Page 4A of this morning's The Herald-Dispatch: "Gov't wants to help strip miners."

Great. That's all West Virginia needs. A bunch of naked coal miners.

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Talk about being out of the loop. There was a Fox tv series called "Anchorwoman" about a model becoming a news anchor at a TV station. I saw a couple of ads for it. I thought it was another mindless sitcom. Apparently it was a reality TV series. I say "was" because it was canceled after airing only one episode.

Why a legitimate newsroom would buy into such an idea is beyond me. But I have the perfect face and voice for print, so what do I know about TV?

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Before I get out of here for the weekend, let me say that the official temperature outside right now is 96 degrees, with a heat index of 97. But that's probably at the airport, right? Yesterday afternoon when I drove up 5th Avenue after work, I saw a credit union thermometer that said it was 107.

And tonight is the first night of high school football season.

But wait. It's only Aug. 24, and the Reds have not yet been mathematically eliminated from the postseason.

So is it summer or fall?

What our public schools need

Taking off on an idea in a previous topic, I thought I would muse some on things our public schools system needs more off and less of. Here are my first few thoughts. Feel free to join in.

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NEEDS MORE

Parents who prepare their kids for school. When I compare test scores -- reading in particular -- for particular schools or districts, I get the feeling the scores correlate pretty well with the number of books in a home.

Teachers who really like kids.

Opportunities for kids to grow according to their skills and talents, not on a fixed schedule that meets someone else's convenience. Some kids are supergood at reading but so-so at math. They shouldn't be held back in reading so someone else can catch up to them. Or the math talent should not be held back because he/she is the only kid in the grade who has an exceptional understanding of the subject.

More equipment so kids can truly explore knowledge.

A greater ability to leave the textbook and teach kids more about the world around them.

Giving kids exposure to the different career and life possibilities that are out there in the big, wide world. If a child grows up not knowing that microbiologists, investment bankers and bridge engineers exist, how can he or she consider that as an interest to follow?

NEED LESS OF

Sports. I can't stand the emphasis on sports in our schools. Look at the yearbook. How many photographs of athletes vs. kids who are skilled in the arts or academics? Yes, life has winners or losers, but they're not all on the ballfield or on the basketball court. In fact, the most important winners aren't there.

Bureaucracy. It's a shame that school-level administrative positions are filled as much through the desire to avoid grievance hearings as they are through personal knowledge of who is best to lead a school in a particular neighborhood.

Fundraisers. Don't turn kids into salesmen.

Teachers who are putting in their time until retirement.

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Having said all this, I do not envy teachers and administrators for their jobs. Teachers and administrators have told me stories about some kids' home lives, and these kids are about as close to a lost cause as you could imagine. The bigger problem, though, is trying to teach kids to excel in an area where excellence is frowned upon, except athletic excellence. I have heard stories of people who don't want their kids to get too much education, because then the kids will move away in search of opportunities. These parents would rather have their kids close by and uneducated.

I thought I would have a better list. Give me a few hours to think about it, and I may post some more ideas. As usual, any other ideas offered in good faith are welcome.

The rule of law and the wealth of nations

The Aug/Sept issue of Reason magazine has been in my mailbox for several days. I got it out today and thumbed through it. There's an interesting article about a study by the World Bank (don't leave yet, please) about the true nature of wealth in both rich nations and poor nations. To sum it up, natural resources and capital resources (machinery, buildings, infrastructure) make up less than one-fourth of a nation's true wealth. About 77 percent of a nation's true wealth is in the education and skills of its people and in the people's confidence in and abiding by the rules of their society. Strong institutions create wealth.

I could draw a parallel between the true wealth of nations and the situation here in West Virginia, but I won't. We've talked about that enough so that readers can draw their own conclusions.

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For what it's worth, the online version of Reason has an article looking at whether we really should expect more hurricanes with global warming. I'm not passing judgment on that article, but I did find the final paragraph interesting:

Nevertheless, the coasts will remain population and development magnets and a richer society will be able to afford better hurricane defenses, such as, stronger buildings, higher levees, and protective surge barriers. But what's the best way to pay for them? One proposal would be instead of depending on "federal assets," local jurisdictions should be pushed to pay for and maintain their own hurricane defenses. If New Orleans needs new and better levees, then the city's citizens should pay for them. If New Orleans residents refuse to tax themselves enough to do so that means that it doesn't make economic sense to live and work there. One proof of the adequacy of their levees would be the willingness of private insurers to offer flood policies to residents. The same logic applies to all coastal counties. Ultimately, instead of retreating from the shore, I believe that we will instead learn how to live with stronger storms.

The feds got tired of paying for flood damage in West Virginia. They began buying out people in the flood plains. Know what I mean?

Odds and ends, 8/21/07

Twenty-nine years ago today, I showed up for my first day on the job here at The Herald-Dispatch. As I looked around the newsroom this morning, I saw mostly people who were born after that date. I'm getting old.

The news business has changed so much in that time. If I had had the Internet and the Microsoft Office package back then, I'm sure my career would have taken a different turn. There's not much better than compiling data and analyzing it.

Well, there is one thing better. Street-level work. I enjoy getting around and checking things out myself.

I won't be here 29 years from now, I hope. Given the state of my retirement savings, I'll probably be working somewhere, trying to pull down a few more bucks to make my trailer payment.

I have told some people that my goal during my lifetime is to have one of my children elected president of the United States. Then I'll retire to a single-wide trailer in the backyard of the White House and tap into its water and sewer lines. It's the southern Ohio and West Virginian way.

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Some folks form the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Institute for Legal Reform came by today to drop off material. They say a survey of small-business owners shows most think West Virginia's legal climate inhibits economic growth in the state.

I told them they need to get some good anecdotes together, like the one I'm about to share. It comes from the owner of a small business in Huntington that has been around more than 30 years. I don't know if the business was founded by the present owner, his/her father or his/her grandfather.

Anyway, this business was sued in a West Virginia court as part of an asbestos lawsuit. More than 30 years ago, a company not based in West Virginia was building a large project in a nearby state. This Huntington company sold some supplies to that construction company. Years later, the project was caught up in asbestos litigation. So the people suing the construction company or its customer sued the Huntington company in a Cabell County court, naming it as a defendant in the asbestos litigation.

Here's the kicker. The material supplied by the Huntington company did not contain asbestos, and it had no real connection to whatever asbestos-bearing material that was used on the construction site. The local company had to pay its lawyer to get it dismissed from the litigation.

In a just world, the Huntington company would have received some compensation for its expenses. But not here.

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(More to come, I hope).

More in migration

Earlier, I gave county-to-county numbers based on exemptions claimed on personal income tax returns for 2004 and 05. Here are some state-to-state numbers for West Virginia.

What surprised me was that WV actually had a net gain of 3,852 from migration. Biggest places those net gains came from:

Maryland: 2,822.
Virginia: 1,674.
Foreign: 345.

Now for the largest net losses to other states:
Florida: 706.
South Carolina: 375.
Kentucky: 329.

Odds and ends, 8/20/07

From the front page of the Cincinnati Enquirer Web site. I will quote it and let it go. If true, it speaks for itself:

A man in his late 20s walking across a railroad crossing was struck and thrown 50 feet by a Norfolk Southern train this morning. A witness said the man was text-messaging on his cell phone at the crossing just before the accident.

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My alma mater ranked Number 9 on the Princeton Review list of party schools released today. The list, in order, is

1. West Virginia University
2. University of Mississippi
3. University of Texas, Austin
4. University of Florida
5. University of Georgia
6. Penn State University
7. University of New Hampshire
8. Indiana University, Bloomington
9. Ohio University, Athens
10. University of California, Santa Barbara

On the other hand, here are the Top 10 “Stone Cold Sober” schools:
1. Brigham Young University
2. Wheaton College (Ill.)
3. Thomas Aquinas College (Calif.)
4. College of the Ozarks (Mo.)
5. Grove City College (Pa.)
6. U.S. Coast Guard Academy
7. U.S. Air Force Academy
8. U.S. Naval Academy
9. City University of New York, Queens
10. Webb Institute (N.Y.)

Source: The Associated Press

Ohio U was a pretty good party school back in the 1970s. I saw a lot of kids waste their early 20s on alcohol, pot and other stuff. I was a stone cold sober kid at a Top 10 party school. Somehow I survived.

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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — Union Carbide Corp. agreed Monday to donate 58 acres of South Charleston property and several research and development laboratories to West Virginia University.

The new WVU Charleston Research Campus, located at the company’s Technology Park, will focus on energy and chemical technology. Union Carbide is a subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Co.

The university will initially relocate its Charleston extension and extended learning offices to the new site, said WVU President David C. Hardesty Jr., who retires from that post on Sept. 1. The university will later develop programs to benefit residents of the Charleston area.

The AP story goes on to note that the new research center "gives WVU the chance to develop education and programs in a part of a state where it does not have a large presence."

Forgive the holes in my knowledge of Kanawha County geography, but I think this is awful close to the Marshall branch campus (or whatever technical term Marshall uses) at South Charleston. The political fallout from this should be fun to watch. Why does WVU need a branch campus next door to Marshall's?

Oh, everyone will cooperate for the good of the community and all that, but some of us wonder what's really going on here. And why.

He's back

He's an acquired taste, I will grant you. I listened to his music as a teenager, and when I went off to college, few of my friends understood why I listened to the guy. I listened to him while they played LPs and reel-to-reel tapes of the Beatles, the Allman Brothers and whoever else.


He wasn't the greatest poet, and he didn't have that great of a voice. But he was comfort food for the musical soul. He was who my family tended to watch every Friday at 7 p.m. (I think) on Channel 3 back in the '70s.


In the 1980s, his star went dim. A judge in Florida even suggested that as punishment, a convicted felon should be forced to listen to his music 24/7.


And now, according to the AP, he's back. I guess I'll have to buy his new CD.



Let's hear it for Porter Wagoner.


I'll buy his CD, but I'll have to listen to it away from the presence of my wife. She tolerates my collection of Bach, Mozart, John Hartford, A-Teens and Allison Krauss. She hasn't been exposed to my classic Glen Campbell stuff. But she draws the line at Porter Wagoner. Oh well, that's why they invented headphones.


Thanks for coming back, Porter.

Bye-bye, Delta Queen?

The Delta Queen may have made its last stop in Huntington.

The U.S. Senate refuses to grant the DQ any further exemptions from a 41-year-old law that requires overnight passenger boats to be made primarily of steel. But the DQ's wooden superstructure has been treated with fireproof materials. It is never more than a mile from shore. And it has a better sprinkler system than (probalby) most of the buildings it passes by, including Huntington.

Unless the DQ gets its exemption, its owners plan a farewell tour next year. Will we get on the stick and arrange a stop in Huntington? Or will our illustrious tourism officials say it's more important to get bus tours in here or more important to get people from Florida to fly into Tri-State Airport and then drive three hours to the east for some whitewater rafting?

Another thought about bridges

Before we leave the topic of Ohio River bridges for a few days, we should consider that overall, we're in good shape here. From Point Pleasant to Portsmouth, the bridges most of us use most often are in pretty good shape, with the exception of the Ironton-Russell Bridge.

The old bridge at Ashland might be a bit narrow, but at least it's one-way, and if it should ever need to be taken out of service, the new bridge right next to it will do until a replacement is built.

Some of our bridges are inadequate for the volume of traffic -- the West 17th Street bridge comes to mind first -- but at least it's been rehabilitated in the past 10 years and should be in good shape structurally. It still needs a companion bridge next to it. While some folks think the approaches are landlocked, I'm sure that can be worked around with the right incentives.

I plan to write more on this topic in the future. But I'll give you all a break right now.

Education for gifted kids

I like to think my youngest child, Adam, is pretty smart. What parent doesn't think at least one of his kids is special, even if the local talented and gifted program seems more intent on keeping kids out of gifted education than finding those who would benefit. I say that because in Cabell County, fewer than 2 percent of children are considered talented or gifted, vs. about 15 percent in Ohio or Kentucky.

Adam may not be a world-class genius, but he is pretty bright. So I saw an article in the online version of Time magazine. I have read the first part, and I plan to read the whole thing later this afternoon. This paragraph summed up much of my frustration with Cabell County public schools:

In a no-child-left-behind conception of public education, lifting everyone up to a minimum level is more important than allowing students to excel to their limit. It has become more important for schools to identify deficiencies than to cultivate gifts. Odd though it seems for a law written and enacted during a Republican Administration, the social impulse behind No Child Left Behind is radically egalitarian. It has forced schools to deeply subsidize the education of the least gifted, and gifted programs have suffered. The year after the President signed the law in 2002, Illinois cut $16 million from gifted education; Michigan cut funding from $5 million to $500,000. Federal spending declined from $11.3 million in 2002 to $7.6 million this year.

We're squandering our best minds.

It's been hard to get Adam's mind on intellectual pursuits this summer. When school starts, we won't push him to be the first Wall of Fame reader in his grade. But we will continue teaching him at home about botany and other stuff second graders don't get much of. He enjoys it, so he'll get it anyway. Even if the schools have a hard time identifying and teaching the brightest kids.

Freedom of speech wins one

First, this from the AP:

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — The federal government has agreed to pay $80,000 to a Texas couple arrested and charged with trespassing in 2004 after they refused to cover up homemade T-shirts with anti-Bush slogans.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of Nicole and Jeffery Rank of Corpus Christi, Texas, announced the settlement on Thursday.

The Ranks were handcuffed, removed from the July 4, 2004, rally at the state Capitol and held in police custody for between one and two hours.

“This settlement is a real victory not only for our clients but for the First Amendment,” said Andrew Schneider, executive director of the ACLU of West Virginia. “As a result of the Ranks’ courageous stand, public officials will think twice before they eject peaceful protesters from public events for exercising their right to dissent.”

An order closing the case was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Charleston.

The recent revelation of the existence of a presidential advance manual made it clear that the government tries to exclude dissenters from the president’s presidential appearances, the ACLU said in a prepared statement. “As a last resort,” the manual says, “security should remove the demonstrators from the event.”

The front of the Ranks’ T-shirts bore the international symbol for “no” superimposed over the word “Bush.” The back of Nicole Rank’s T-shirt said “Love America, Hate Bush.” On the back of Jeffery Rank’s T-shirt was the message “Regime Change Starts at Home.”

Jeffery Rank, who was a Republican who disagreed with Bush, said he found it ironic that the government manual encourages event organizers to use young Republicans as “rally squads to oppose messages like ours at presidential appearances.” Rank has since changed his party affiliation, the ACLU notes in its release.

A call to the White House was not immediately return Thursday.

If memory serves correctly, I covered this event as a reporter. I saw the Ranks being escorted out for the crime of wearing a T-shirt that expressed dissent. I saw no problem in the crowd as a result of their wearing their shirts.

And this was an official government visit, not a campaign stop, so the White House really couldn't say it paid for the use of the Capitol.

It was all so petty. The Ranks exercised their right of free speech, even if others found it a bit offensive. There was no reason for them to have been taken into custody.

WV ACT scores 2007

Here are how West Virginia high school students scored on the ACT test this year, compared with kids in other states.

We're doing okay in English, but we have some work to do in math, as you can see. Also, it appears we have fewer kids taking the ACT relative to the rest of the USA. That can be because our school-age population is steady or stagnant while that of the rest of the nation is growing. But that's just my initial theory.

His favorite bus

Back to family matters for a few minutes. . .


When this photo ran on Page 1 last week,

my youngest son was delighted. This is a Saf-T-Liner C2 conventional school bus built by Thomas Built Buses of High Point, N.C. It's my seven-year-old's favorite make and model of bus, and he will tell anyone that a year ago the marketing director for Thomas Built let him steer one around the storage lot at the factory.

If Adam has one thing against his bus driver, it's that his bus driver thinks C2s are ugly.

After Adam learned that Thomas Built Buses is a subsidiary of Freightliner, he became a fan of Freightliner tractor-trailers. When we're on I-64, he looks for newer model Freightliner semis. If he sees one with lenses similar to those on a C2, he says, "There's a Freightliner with C2 headlights." If he sees one with four round headlights, he says, 'There's a Freightliner with HDX headlights." (He drives his teenage sister crazy with this, but that's what brothers do best).

The newer rear-engine model Thomas Built flatnose, or transit-type, school bus is known as the HDX. The "D" in HDX refers to the fact that in the school bus industry, flatnose buses are known as D types.

Conventional buses are known as C types, and the small ones that are built on the frames of small trucks are known as A types. IC Corp. (the school bus manufacturing arm of International) also builds what it calls a B type bus. It's a shorter version of the C type.

At least, that's how I understand it.

That's what you get from listening to kids.

If you want a detailed analysis of how Karl Rove's resignation affects global warming and the mainstream media's coverage of the Iraq war, you'll have to go elsewhere today. If you want to talk about school buses and semis, drop me a line.

Pomeroy-Mason Bridge: Too much

If I read the numbers right, about 10,500 cars cross the old Pomeroy-Mason Bridge (background) each day. I suspect many of them are Meigs County, Ohio, residents on their way to the Wal-Mart Supercenter on the West Virginia side of the Ohio River. The old bridge has two lanes. It opened in 1928. According to the National Bridge Inventory, it is listed as "structurally deficient." No doubt it is also functionally obsolete. It has a sufficiency rating of 2. That is the same rating as the bridge over the Guyandotte River in Huntington that was closed for structural problems, and it's the same rating as the pink bridge near Ritter Park.

Going up and down the river for some comparisons, about 25,500 cars use the four-lane Silver Memorial Bridge daily between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, W.Va. About 16,000 a day use Huntington's East End bridge. And about 2,600 use the two-lane William S. Ritchie Bridge over the Ohio River at Ravenswood.

The Silver Memorial and Ritchie bridges are plain old steel bridges, while the East End bridge uses the cable stay design. When the Ohio Department of Transportation decided to replace the Pomeroy-Mason Bridge, it went with the cable stay design, just as it did in Ironton to replace the old Ironton-Russell Bridge (sufficiency rating 7.2).

The project at Pomeroy has been plagued with problems. Likewise, the project at Ironton. Only at Pomeroy, problems came after construction on the new cable stay brige started. In Ironton, they came as ODOT tried to design a fancy new cable stay bridge to replace the old one, which opened in 1922. Construction bids came in far over ODOT's estimate.

Both cases suffer similar flaws. The replacement bridges were to big, too expensive and just too much. ODOT could have gone with a steel bridge like you see about anywhere else along the river. I'll admit I prefer the cable stay design aesthetically, but you have to consider money, too.

The new Pomeroy-Mason bridge will end up costing about $65 million. Surely, ODOT could have spent less on a steel bridge and used the savings elsewhere. Perhaps now people at the agency wish they had.

Odds and ends, 4/14/07

The Huntington garbage truck shortage made the national AP wire today.

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Huntington should at least consider the possibility of privatizing its trash collection service. But it won't happen. Too many people owe votes to city worker unions.

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My wife caught part of a PBS kids' show this morning -- "Arthur." We talked about how overnight our kids went from "Pokemon" to "CSI."

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So Karl Rove has left the White House. I could have predicted that years ago. Very few of a president's closest advisors last the entire eight years of two consecutive terms, right? So the odds were against Rove's staying.

How much does this really affect my life? Probably not much, based on how crazy the national media are over this story.

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Other than that, not much excites me today. Must be the weather.

I hope to have something on the Pomeroy-Mason Bridge posted tomorrow. I've done a little checking, and there's something about it that I find amusing and frustrating, but it's something I can empathize with.

Migration by the numbers

So last week I got to thinking about migration patterns in West Virginia, as I tend to do. Here are some numbers some people might find interesting. They say something about the different counties we have. They are based on Internal Revenue Service numbers derived from comparing counties of residency in 2004 and 2005. Numbers are for dependents claimed on income tax returns. Only counties with movements of 10 or more people in either direction are counted:

Cabell:
Net loss of 99 people to Kentucky.
Net loss of 263 to Ohio, including the net loss of 239 to Lawrence County.
Net gain of 88 from elsewhere in West Virginia.

Berkeley:
Net gain of 1,416 from Maryland.
Net gain of 889 from Virginia.
Net gain of 553 from elsewhere in West Virginia.

Putnam:
-6 NC
+27 OH
+557 WV (includes net gain of 378 from Kanawha County)

Kanawha
-198 FL
-120 NC
-303 WV (includes net loss of 378 to Putnam County)

Monongalia
-33 MD
-61 PA
-65 VA
+159 WV

Which tells me the growth in Putnam County comes mainly from people moving out of Kanawha County. In fact, if you want the breakdown of Putnam County, here are the top five WV counties contributing to Putnam's growth:
Kanawha 378
Logan 45
Cabell 37
Raleigh 36
Wood 26

And here are the three WV counties that Putnam County loses the most people to:
Mason -11
Jackson -15
Boone -24.

Odds and ends, 8/13/07

I love bridges, so this caught my eye:

POMEROY - Already one year past its initial completion date and nearly $20 million over the initial estimate, the construction of the new Pomeroy Mason Bridge has been its own tale of reality being stranger than fiction.

There was the slip on the Ohio side, the bad concrete on the West Virginia tower which ultimately had to be dismantled and poured again, additional excavation work at the Ohio approach and unforeseen equipment delays that resulted in no work being done on the span for nine months. Then, there was the incident last month where a young man died after driving his vehicle off the unfinished Ohio ramp that authorities investigated as a possible suicide.

All of these incidents coupled with the existing bridge's age and the looming memory of the Silver Bridge Disaster have created an air of controversial folklore swirling around the new bridge.

My son and I were heading home from Athens, Ohio, recently, so we stopped in Pomeroy to look at the new bridge. It will be impressive when it's finished, although I have to admit it looks like too much for what will be needed.

I'll try to post a photo tomorrow.

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I could have saved CBS a few million dollars a year ago. When CBS went looking for an anchor for its evening newscast, I thought it should have gone after Today's Ann Curry. Last week, I spent part of an evening watching both the CBS and NBC evening newscasts. I switched back and forth. I thought Curry, who was filling in for Brian Williams, was far better than Couric in the anchor chair. I even thought she was better than Williams.

But what do I know? I'm not one of the geniuses at CBS who threw millions to buy the Couric brand and drive the network's news deeper into third place.

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With the latest problems with the shuttle, isn't it about time to scrap the program and go back to disposable rockets, at least until we can develop a system for re-usable rockets that doesn't require the use of all those fragile tiles? And that doesn't require the astronauts to ride into space right next to potentially the biggest chemical bomb ever assembled?

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Barry Bonds broke Hank Aaron's record last week, and I don't care, because:

1. Bonds is not the warm and fuzzy, rags to riches guy we like to wrap our arms around.
2. Aaron set his record in my lifetime. Been there, done that.
3. Who really cares about baseball?
4. When did baseball care about the rest of us?
5. He did it in a Giants uniform.
6. He once wore a Pirates uniform.
7. I have more important things in my life to think about.

I could probably come up with three more reasons, but I don't want to. It's just not important enough for me to spend more than three minutes thinking about.

What grandmothers and grandsons do best

Bridges and federal funding

This comes from an e-mail sent this afternoon by the Reason Foundation:

Reason Foundation's Robert Poole says in the aftermath of the Minneapolis bridge collapse "the first thing we should be looking deeply into is how we spend the highway money we have. If the current system is seriously flawed, it makes no sense to simply pour more money into it, unreformed. I fault the current federal highway funding system on two key points. The first is its long tradition of, and recent major uptrend in, allocating money to congress-members’ pet projects--rather than to projects that yield the most bang for the buck in addressing real transportation needs. A system that spends lavishly to build bridges to nowhere, while over 75,000 bridges are in danger of collapse and another 79,000 can’t handle today’s demand, is a system that cries out for fundamental change. The other basic problem is that the federal funding system, by design, shifts resources from populous, fast-growing states to low-population, low/no-growth states. You can understand why this was done originally: to make sure that Interstate links got built through rural states where there wasn’t enough traffic to generate enough fuel-tax revenue to cover the cost. But that was then, and this is now. Today we have massive needs in specific locations: to expand urban expressways to alleviate congestion and to expand the capacity of key Interstate routes to keep commerce flowing. Yet the federal funding mechanism still takes funds from the states where these needs are greatest and sends them to places like Alaska and North Dakota. We couldn’t have designed a more perverse approach to solving our highway investment problem if we tried."

Political clout. It's why Cabell County has about three miles of rural four-lane road (not counting Interstate 64), and that is the Merritts Creek Connector, which opened, what, three years ago? And it's why there's a fancy highway being built in Logan County between Logan (population 1,537) and Man (population 712). That road came about after high school kids were killed on a bad spot on the old road, but still, it's far more elaborate than necessary. Has anyone here seen the bridge built over downtown Man?

For years, Cabell County's elected representatives at the state and federal level have funneled lots of earmarks to Marshall University. That's probably why we don't have better roads and bridges than we do. You can put more politicians' names on campus buildings than you can on one road or one bridge, and you get more groundbreaking and ribboncutting photo ops.

Cabell County has slipped from being the second most populous county in West Virginia to third. Any connection?

Rahall defends coal-to-liquid

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall provides a weekly column to newspapers in his district. Sometimes we run it, but usually we don't. This week's column praises coal-to-liquid fuel, otherwise known as CTL. Toward the end of his piece, Rahall replies to criticism of the environmental effects of CTL:

And as to environmental concerns, studies indicate that there is no reason to be any more concerned about the use of liquid coal than there is of gasoline. In fact, new studies indicate that CTL, over its life, is cleaner and more efficient than the fuels used in most cars and planes today.

Now we wait and see how the anti-CTL crowd responds, if it does.

To me, the best part of CTL is the national security part, which Rahall mentions in the middle of his column:

It would also promote the long-term use of CTL fuels by the military – a ready market for this alternative form of energy. In fact, the Air Force, which accounts for more than half the U.S. government’s fuel consumption, is currently testing these cutting-edge fuels in their aircraft with the full intention of shifting away from a reliance on the foreign-produced oil it consumes.

Borrowing money

Way back, when I was staring out, I almost couldn't get credit. I couldn't even get a credit card. I couldn't borrow money to buy a car even if I had a 20 percent downpayment. I was close to 25, was steadily employed and could afford the payment, but I still had to find a cosigner. That was in the late 1970s.

Fast forward to today. Kids are swamped with credit card applications as soon as they turn 18. If you max out your credit card, they'll up your limit as long as you keep making those minimum payments that will keep you in debt for 42 years. You can buy a car or a house with no money down.

That last part may be changing, according to Fortune magazine online. To quote from the article, for the benefit of people who don't click links:

Graiver said to expect to pay a down payment of at least 10 percent, and have a FICO credit score of 620 or higher in order to get a rate between 6.2 and 7.5 percent. Perhaps 90 percent of home buyers qualify for that prime rate, although if you want a rate below 7 percent you probably need a FICO score above 660.

To get the best deal, "plan on coming to my office with your tax returns and a down payment," said Bob Mouton, President of the Long Island-based American Mortgage Group.
If you're among the 10 percent of the people with credit scores below 620 who need a subprime mortgage, things could get tricky.

"To a large extent, they are going to find that no one wants to lend to them," said Steve Habetz, president of Threshold Mortgage in Westport, Conn. "Those loans are being eliminated from the marketplace."

Someone with a credit score of 600 might have to pay as much as 9.5 percent, according to FICO, which provides lenders with borrowers' credit ratings.

I hate to say it, mainly because I want to sell my house and move, but it's for the best that credit tighten again. It was too hard in the late 1970s, but it's far too easy today.

It's been too easy to get credit, and the recent changes in the bankruptcy laws make it harder to wipe out debt. That tells me the housing crunch that some markets face now is only the beginning of a larger, wider problem that no one is talking about.

Someone tell me I'm wrong.

Personal income tax stats

Okay, let's try this again, only this time we will make the spreadsheet narrower so you don't have to scroll across.

These are numbers the IRS released this week about personal income taxes paid in 2005. I offer them as people talk about "tax cuts for the rich" vs. decreasing the tax burden for the poor and all those other arguments that are more about the argument than about tax policy itself.

Make from this chart what you will. Please remember that "returns" means just that. I did not differentiate between married filing jointly and married filing separately or whatever.

This chart contains a lot of calculations that I did. If you want to see the entire original chart with the original numbers as an Excel chart, go here.

And now, the revised spreadsheet:

Ironton and Huntington

My introduction to Ironton, Ohio, was to a city wedded to the industrial age. Factories hummed with workers, smoke poured into the sky and the downtown was alive with commerce.

At the time, people kept explaining that Lawrence County was really two different places. On the eastern end was a community that served mainly as a bedroom for Huntington. At the western end was Ironton and, to a lesser degree, South Point. Heavy industry defined this area. At South Point, there was the Allied fertilizer plant. I’ve heard stories that the plant created its own fog on some mornings. The fog could be so thick, drivers could hardly see the road in front of them.

At Coal Grove, there was Carlyle Tile. Crossing into Ironton, the tar processing plant, the cement plant and the coke plant dominated the sight from U.S. 52. Once in town, Dayton Malleable, known locally as simply “the Malleable” or “Malleable,” occupied most of a mile along South 3rd Street.

Past Ironton was the Dow Chemical plant at Hanging Rock.

Across from Coal Grove and Ironton were the Armco Steel works at Ashland. The bright orange triangular Armco sign was a nighttime landmark.

But that was nearly 30 years ago. The fertilizer, tile, cement, tar and coke plants are gone, along with Malleable. Several have been leveled.

There has been some activity just past Ironton, between Hanging Rock and Portsmouth, Ohio. In the past 10 years, a gas-fired power plant and a coke plant have been added to Dow and what is now the Sunoco chemical plant in that area. But western Lawrence County has lost its economic swagger. Not only have the factories been removed, but the county’s only hospital – the one that was once in Ironton – shut down several years ago.

I covered Ironton and the rest of Lawrence County for The Herald-Dispatch for nearly 10 years. That assignment ended in late June of 1989, but I still like to get down to Ironton as much as I can to see how things are changing.

A couple of things stick out. One is that in the 30 years since I was introduced to Ironton, the whole county has become more of a bedroom community for other places in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

The second has to do with the Huntington attitude. Too many people in Huntington see everything through the lens of this city’s experience. They might not know that Ironton was planned and laid out as an industrial community before Huntington was. And they don’t see that Ironton has had many of the problems Huntington has had, only worse.

One former HD writer once said, “Take Marshall (University) out of Huntington and you have Ironton.” He said that before the Ironton hospital closed.

Odds and ends, 8/9/07

Officials in Hurricane, W.Va., are trying to scare Canada geese away from their park with "Birdfrite," which is fired from shotguns and creates a very loud noise. The idea is to condition the geese to avoid the area. But city officials aren't doing anything to change the habitat that attracts the birds.

Said it before, saying it again. To get rid of the vermin, you have to get rid of the habitat that attracts them. That means not having as much delicious grass close to lakes or ponds or rivers. It's either that or exterminate the species, which I don't see anyone wanting to do.

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Speaking of vermin, I have seen an awful lot of little spotted deer in my area lately. Either they are separated from their mothers or their mothers do a better job of hiding themselves. I almost hit one yesterday when it bolted in front of me in panic.

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Remember, global warming will lead to an increase in destructive hurricanes such as Katrina. In fact, Bush's environmental policies created Katrina. I know it's true because Robert Kennedy Jr. said so back in 2005.

Now read this, which AP carried this afternoon:

MIAMI (AP) — Government forecasters minimally reduced their expectations for Atlantic hurricane season Thursday, saying up to nine hurricanes and up to 16 tropical storms are expected to form.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration maintained its prediction that three to five of the hurricanes to be strong.

The revised forecast trimmed by just one the upper-level predictions for the number of tropical storms and hurricanes expected.

Oh well.

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Earlier today, I pasted a spreadsheet with some data from the IRS. The more I look at it, the more I realize it needs work to make it understandable... and viewable within the parameters of this display. So let me work on it some more and I'll see if I can get a better version up.

Rules to live by

Michelle Malkin's Web site has a link to a book and various rules to live by that kids won't learn in school. She asked her readers to submit theirs. Here are ones I have learned and ones others have told me.

Mine:

A loaded coal truck always has the right of way.

Even a coal truck yields to a coal train.

Everything flows downhill. Except money. It flows uphill.

Others:

Always go into an unfamiliar situation with your shields up and phasers on standby.

Never face down seven angry men when all you're carrying is a six-shooter. (Courtesy Col. Sherman Potter of the MASH 4077th).

When a man tells you how honest he is, make sure his hand is not in your pocket.

When you're looking for running shoes, go to the store and look at the most expensive pair they have. Then look for something half that price.

Sometimes, there's no better word to describe a situation than (I can't run it here. The dirty word filter might catch it.).

The wider the smile, the sharper the knife. (Courtesy Quark of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.").


There are others. I'll add them as I think of them.

Global warming deniers

It seems Newsweek is devoting a cover story to global warming deniers. It's a long piece that I have yet to read.

I have scanned it, however, and it appears on the surface to be the same old stuff saying if you don't believe in man-made global warming, you have been duped by ExxonMobil.

I scanned the comments section, and it's the same old stuff there, too, from people on all sides of this debate.

That's the problem. We pick sides. We cherrypick the information we want and ignore the rest. What we don't ignore, we criticize as false and phony. We attribute motives to everyone. We say your side has been bought off but my side is pure and incorruptable. We throw around the word "science," but we can't agree on what it means.

My own view? The earth probably is warming, but it may have started cooling without our knowing it. Does man contribute? Maybe a little, but it would be the height of ecological arrogance to say it's all our fault. Should we reduce our emissions of greenhouse gases? Of course. Why wouldn't we want to reduce pollution?

Are my own thoughts on global warming changing with time? Oh, yes.

The big question: Do most of the people involved in this "debate" know what they're talking about? No. You can include me in that group. I read about it. On my desk is the Department of Energy's 2006 report "Emissions of greenhouse gases in the United States in 2005." As soon as I can get my house and property repaired cleaned up from storm damage from last month, I plan to read it.

Most people treat global warming the same way they do everything else. They select facts and data that fit their prejudices, and they go with it.

I often think that I could make a lot of money in this business if only I could find the right prejudices to appeal to. I mean, ones that no one else has claimed.

Are we wading into treacherous waters when we pretend to know what we talk about as we base public policy on science that only a very few people on earth really understand? Yes.

Do I trust those very few people? I can't say, because I don't really know who they are.

Do I trust most of what the national media say about global warming? No way.

Coal is evil

That's what a guy who writes for the left-of-center Huffington Post says. Actually, he says coal is the enemy of the human race.

The entire post is here. This is an excerpt:

We have the technical means to free ourselves of this filthy 19th century energy source, which is destroying our landscapes, our rural families and economies, our atmosphere. The barriers are political. We've let ourselves be bullied by the coal industry and by the politicians it has purchased. We haven't mounted the kind of public outcry that would force political action.

I don't post this because I agree with it. I post it because it's out there and a lot of people -- okay, a good number of people -- here in West Virginia would probably agree with him.

I have to wonder, though, if we have the technical means to free ourselves of coal, why hasn't some genius entrepreneur made it happen? Where is the Steve Jobs or the Thomas Edison of the coal-free life?

Graffiti

I was encouraged to attend a meeting in the newsroom today, and the topic of graffiti came up. I was the only person in the room to defend graffiti as an art form.

I made the distinction between graffiti and vandalism. Walls and other structures can be set aside for anyone to practice their art form. I will admit that I am impressed by some of the creativity I see in the vandalism downtown, but it is still vandalism.

It's that difference I make when I use the word "graffiti." I may refer to "graffiti vandalism" or "destruction of property" when referring to most of what I see downtown.

But the boss may hold me to saying "graffiti." Yesterday he was not gung-ho on my using the phrase "moral turpitude."

We know who destroyed the I-35W bridge

So you thought no one knew yet what caused the Minneapolis bridge to collapse last week?

Let's see, I've heard that it was the fault of President Bush for spending so much money on the Iraq war rather than on the nation's infrastructure. John McCain said it was Congress' fault for all the spending it does on earmarks. I hear Rush Limbaugh has dug up someone who blames it on global warming.

And twice this week, I've received e-mails blaming it on NAFTA.

This is what I mean:

OFFICIALS WARNED NAFTA TRUCKS THREATENED BRIDGE

Conducting interviews on this topic is the author of this article Dr. Jerome Corsi.

Public officials in Minnesota had been warned that increasing truck traffic from international trade was placing an undue stress on the state's transportation infrastructure, including specific warnings concerning the now-collapsed bridge over the Mississippi on Interstate 35W in Minneapolis.

Remember back when Hurricane Katrina was just hitting New Orleans, and Robert Kennedy Jr. was already blaming it on global warming and George W. Bush? People just can't wait to take any situation and turn it into a political blame game.

I've not studied much mathematics and/or logic, but one thing I was taught was to avoid the idea that correlation is the same as cause and effect.

On the other hand, most of these people don't care. They take anything they see and use it to suit their own ends.

Curse you, Red Baron.

Odds and ends, 8/6/07

We hear about radicalized Muslims in Europe. Here, the New York Times has a story from a convention of such a group.

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This came today from the Ashland Alliance, which functions as the chamber of commerce and as the economic development agency for Boyd County, Ky."

Alliance President Jim Purgerson, Lawrence County (OH) Chamber President Bill Dingus, and Huntington Chamber President Mark Bugher went to Washington, D.C. this week to meet with Congressmen Geoff Davis (KY), Charles Wilson (OH), and Nick Rahall (WV) to drum up support for a proposed parking garage at Tri-State Airport. Due in large part to the success of Allegiant Air’s non-stop service to Orlando, boarding at the airport for the year to-date are up 75%, which at times has caused an overflow at the airport’s parking lot. The addition of a multi-story parking garage attached to the main terminal via walkway, would do much to alleviate this problem and help in the modernization of the airport. All three Congressmen pledged their support, and Congressman Rahall will take the lead as he is Chairman of the House Transportation Committee.

Nothing wrong with that, although it probably will get caught up in the question of exactly how much Congress should earmark for local projects, and which projects should receive earmarks. The difference here is that this is a capital investment rather than paying for a Lawrence Welk museum or some such.

A former colleague here at The Herald-Dispatch (we'll call him He Who Must Not Be Named) and I talked about mountaintop removal mining, a practice he opposed. I asked him about the mountains that are leveled to build four-lane roads. He said that was different, as it is for the public use and the public good rather than a private enterprise.

I can see his point, although I must admit I tend to think too many four-lane roads are being built in southern West Virginia.

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And finally, did anyone notice that Huntington has two bridges on the National Bridge Inventory that scored 2 points out of 100 on the national sufficiency rating scale? One was the 5th Avenue bridge to Guyandotte, which was closed earlier this year for safety reasons. The other is Huntington's infamous pink bridge.

It has already been reported that the state is willing to help Huntington replace the bridge, but Huntington needs to come up with some money. That should be interesting to see where the money will come from.

It's probably been a while . . .

. . . since anyone put a quarter into this pop machine.

30th anniversary of Surface Mining and Coal Reclamation Act

Coal mining is probably the most divisive industry in West Virginia, with the possible exception of gambling. About 30 years ago, President Carter signed the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act.

Here is how The Associated Press described the law and its effects, as published in The Herald-Dispatch this past Friday:

The law was supposed to strike a balance between coal production and environmental protection — and yet, countless Americans in Appalachia and in the West, where surface mining is predominant, have horror stories about the bulldozers and blasting next door.

Coal chiefs generally view the law as largely successful, but have a few complaints of their own. They say the implementation of the law has resulted in federal micromanagement, too many rule changes and an overly complex permit system in an industry that provides power to half the nation.

U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall, D-W.Va., one of the original framers of the act, said the essence of the law — to dovetail coal production with the needs of the coalfield environment — is as valid today as it was 30 years ago. But he added the act has been plagued by haphazard implementation and enforcement.”

Back before the 1977 law, strip mining scarred thousands of acres of Appalachia. Lawrence County, Ohio, had its share of unreclaimed sites. Based on the law of the time, the areas were considered reclaimed or active. But a mining company could walk away, leaving acre after acre stripped of vegetation and topsoil and claim the mine was still active as long as a rusting, useless piece of heavy machinery sat there. At least, that's what the Soil Conservation Service agent told me on a driving tour of those sites.

In at least one place in Lawrence County, a creek was so filled with soil that had eroded from a mine site that the creekbed filled with silt and water actually ran over a wood-deck bridge. I saw it myself. Please don't ask me what road or what bridge. It was so long ago, and I have forgotten.

All that and more was what the 1977 law was supposed to correct.

And then came mountaintop removal mining, the most controversial method of mining coal that Appalachia has seen. Never before had mining companies altered the landscape so much as they level the tops of mountains and filled in valleys in their quest to recover as much coal as possible.

It comes down to production vs. environment. For many places in Appalachia, people need both. If you take coal out of the economy of several southern West Virginia counties -- Boone, Logan, Mingo, Wyoming and McDowell come to mind -- you might as well fence the area off and designate it as a nature preserve.

Rahall is right on one point. Enforcement is a problem. But it's more. Coal is one of those things we can't live with and we can't live without. As long as there's coal to mine, we'll always have to find a balance we can live with, even if we can barely accept it. And when the coal is gone, we'll have to deal with the environmental damage and no way to pay for cleaning it up.

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.

Bridges

This photo was taken in early 2005, when my son Joey was working on his fifth-grade social studies fair project. We wanted to do something different, so we decided to photograph and research the Ohio River bridges in West Virginia. We had a lot of photos at home because of various trips we had taken. I told Joey I would help him and provide some material, but he would have to do almost all of the work himself. I did design the title for his project after he named it. He learned a lot. I was glad he did most of the work himself. From what I saw and heard, a lot of parents that year practically did their children's projects for them.

So it was with interest that I heard Wednesday night about the bridge collapse in Minnesota. I've been helping the news side here work on some material for tomorrow's paper about bridges in this area. Good for The Herald-Dispatch that it has a bridge nerd on its staff.

I don't want to write too much about there here, because I don't want to steal the reporters' thunder. But I hope to write more tomorrow on thoughts about our area's bridges.

Sorry for inactivity

Yesterday was busy, and today I am very busy helping with covering and finding databases for our reporters on bridges in this area.

I seem to be the resident bridge nerd, so I've been talking about the Silver Bridge and bridge inspection stuff to a couple of reporters who are working on stories based on what happened in the Twin Cities yesterday.

I'll get busy posting again when most of that is behind me.