International Respect for Chickens Day

(Title changed because this thing is taking off in all directions).

I'm on the mailing list of a magazine called Poultry Press. It's published by a group seeking to liberate chickens from factory farms.

In the magazine, I notice that May 4 is International Respect for Chickens Day.

I'm not making this up, and I'm not doing this to poke fun at people who commiserate with the sufferings of poultry in factory farms.

It would make for some interesting news stories if anyone bites.

Catlettsburg floodwall art

Back in December, I was down at Catlettsburg one gray Sunday afternoon. I was photographing some towboats and barges, and I wanted to see the murals on the floodwall there.

These are only a few scenes, but anyone who wants to see something on the Huntington floodwall should look at what Catlettsburg did. They did it really good.

I hope to have more photos in a few weeks, but these should do for now.

Quotes without comment

Every year, the Freedom Forum sends us a flip calendar with a quote of the day relating to the 1st Amendment.

Here are the quotes for this week. I offer no further comment on them. I leave that up to my readers (all 12 of you).

"Everybody is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts." -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, former U.S. senator, 1989.

"If we prize freedom, we should let the radio talkers talk. Let them be perfectly understood, and let the pressure groups answer them when the talkers veer off reason with their inane hatreds." -- Michael Meyers, columnist, The Washington Post, 2007.

"To write the first draft of history, you have to be a witness to it." -- Joe Urschel, Newseum, 2003.

"The press's ability to pursue the truth and publish what we feel is appropriate will always be called into question by those who would prefer to operate in a less open society." -- Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., publisher, The New York Times, 2001.

"People grow or diminish in moral stature by the words which they speak and the messages which they choose to hear." -- Pope John Paul II, 2004.

"The First Amendment shouldn't be tossed because it makes us uncomfortable. We have to recognize that there are limits on government's ability to protect us from ourselves." -- Linda Campbell, columnist, Fort Worth (Texas) Star-Telegram, 2001.

"I believe that unless we preserve absolute freedom of expression, democracy will perish." -- Frank E. Gannett, Gannett Co. founder, 1957.

Ashland's riverfront park

I really wish I could have been in Ashland, Ky., yesterday afternoon for the groundbreaking ceremony (which for some reason I tend to type as 'ceremoney' ... hmmm) for the new riverfront park.

Harris Riverfront Park used to be one of my favorite places, but it hasn't been for about three years now. Here's why:

One spring day in 2005, I dropped my older son off at school. To make things simple, we brought his little brother along. His preschool class started at 9 a.m. Having 60 minutes to kill, we went to HRP. What we found at 8 a.m. was a collection of people who looked like they slept at the park or planned to set up a panhandling business there. The park was nice, and the river looked really good, but the people at the park gave me bad vibes. I got my son out of there.

In recent years, as the park has deteriorated, I've thought a lot about Rudy Giuliani and the broken window theory of governance. Huntington has a lot of broken windows. Sometimes I wonder how much it would cost to get Giuliani in here for a couple of months so he could apply his experience in New York to what we're going through here in Huntington. It's not like he's going to be busy for the next four years, you know?

Back to Ashland ....

If the good people of Ashland were to ask me for my advice on how to prevent their new park from suffering the same problems as HRP, here are five tips I would give them:


1. Keep it active. The more people that go in an out, the less comfortable it will be for people who want to be permanent residents.

2. Maintain it.

3. Keep it secure. That means a visible and frequent police presence. There's a reason people drive 10 mph slower on Ohio Route 7 than they do on W.Va. Route 2. People in Ohio have a healthy fear of the Ohio Highway Patrol. You never know where you will see an OHP trooper, or where he will see you first.

4. Make it pedestrian-friendly. You can hardly walk to HRP from downtown Huntington, mainly because there's no traffic signal to protect you when you cross Veterans Memorial Boulevard.

5. Actively market the park and the city to passenger riverboats. The park will give boats such as the Delta Queen and the Mississippi Queen a reason to stop in Ashland. The passengers can tour the town, and the boat crew will buy potable water, hardware, other supplies and services from local businesses. But the boats must have a reason to stop. Look to Point Pleasant, W.Va., for what a park and a reason can do.

Here's hoping Ashland's park looks better in 2028 than HRP does now.

Odds and ends, 3/27/08

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — The state’s top law enforcement officer wants Ohio’s colleges and universities to crack down on what he believes are overly aggressive and deceptive marketing practices by credit-card companies on campus.

Attorney General Marc Dann joined the U.S. Public Interest Research Group in a conference call Thursday to release a nationwide survey that shows four out of five students want schools to enact tougher regulations on credit-card marketing. ...

Among other things, schools should disclose how much they get back from the credit card companies who solicit business on campus.

###

We're still Number 49!

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — While West Virginia’s per capita income grew by more than $1,300 from 2006 to 2007, it still remained 49th in the country.

A U.S. Department of Commerce Bureau of Economic Analysis report released Wednesday showed that West Virginia’s per capita income was $29,537 last year. That was trailed only by Mississippi’s figure of $28,845.

Both states also ranked 49th and 50th in 2006.Connecticut hung onto its No. 1 spot in the rankings with a 2007 per capita income of $54,117, followed closely by New Jersey, Massachusetts and New York.

The national per capita personal income in 2007 was $38,611, a 5.2 percent increase from 2006.

But let's make our public sector employees Number 25. We have our pride, after all.

###

And Huntington-Ashland remains the 160th largest metropolitan area in the United States out of 363. Charleston is 151, Lexington KY 109 and Columbus OH 32.

For what it's worth, the Columbus metro area now has about 1.7 million people. All of West Virginia has 1.8 million.

Marshall's baseball stadium

Stephen Kopp, president of Marshall University, visited The Herald-Dispatch editorial board today to talk about various things. One of them that took about five minutes of a 90-minute interview was the status of the new baseball stadium.

What baseball stadium? From the way Kopp talked, it will be a while.

Kopp said Marshall people have looked around Huntington for what would be needed to build a good baseball field with a stadium. For starters, they need 10 acres. They did not find a 10-acre site in a suitable location near the campus. For comparison, 10 acres is 2.5 to 3 times the size of the new softball field.

And Marshall would need $12 million to $15 million to build a new stadium, including land acquisition. For comparison, the new Engineering Lab Building going up along 3rd Avenue is a $5 million project.

Right now, about $100 million worth of construction is under way on the Marshall campus. All of it is either public-private investment or private investment, Kopp said. That tells me there is nothing being built that is 100 percent funded by the state.

Kopp didn't say it, but if someone would donate 10 acres near campus and come up with a few million to build a good stadium . . .

During the discussion, I was going to ask one question but forgot to: How many people would pay to see a Marshall baseball game on or near campus? Seriously. I would like to know how this investment could be justified.

How to attract factory jobs to Huntington

Earlier today, I left a comment on one of the http://www.herald-dispatch.com/ user forums. Someone had said Huntington needs to attract more manufacturing jobs. Know-it-all me gave this reply:

There is also the assumption that companies that have manufacturing jobs want to locate within corporate boundaries. In modern America, they do not. How would Huntington or any other city in this area convince a manufacturer that being inside the city is more profitable than being outside?

Having nuked that person, here is what came later on the AP wire:

WEST CHESTER, Ohio (AP) — AK Steel has approved a 20-year supply contract with SunCoke Energy to provide AK’s Middletown Works with metallurgical-grade coke and electrical power.

The deal must still be approved by Middletown officials.

The coke and power would come from a new $340-million facility to be constructed, owned and operated by SunCoke adjacent to the Middletown Works.

SunCoke, based in Knoxville, Tenn., also is seeking economic incentives to build and operate the proposed plant, which would be capable of producing about 550,000 tons of coke and 50 megawatts of electrical power a year.

A zoning change and other city permits will be required.

Now I have the answer to my question. If we want to attract manufacturing jobs into the city, the best bet would be from a company that would supply materials to a manufacturer already in town and that does not want to incur a lot of unnecessary transportation costs.

Considering the companies that have left since I have been at the HD for nearly 30 years, I don't know what the list of possible suppliers would be.

And I don't know what "economic incentives" Huntington could offer. Sun Coke has a plant in Ohio between Ironton and Portsmouth. I probably need to learn exactly what incentives it received to build there before I could say if Huntington, Cabell County or West Virginia could offer incentives that are competitive with those offered in Ohio.

More birds

A little more than a week ago, I had to run up to Huntington High School. While waiting for my daughter to finish the activity she was involved in, I looked for the hawk that frequents the area. I didn't see it, but I heard some caws off to my right. There were maybe a half dozen crows in the trees. I got as close as I could before they flew off.

(Note to bird lovers: If these are ravens, rooks or flibbertigibbets rather than crows, please be gentle with me.).

And this past Sunday, I saw a lot of buzzards in a tree along the Ohio River in Lawrence County, Ohio. They often use this tree as a roost. I got close enough to get a couple of photos, but I had to push my equipment to the limit. The limit of my knowledge. I really need to read the instruction book so I can compensate for the differences in light and such.

Anyway, I almost like buzzards. I wouldn't want one as a pet, but I would like to get some more pictures of them sometimes. Crows, too.

As I get older, I am less and less interested in human activities and more interested in the world around me. That's why my attitudes toward mountaintop removal mining really tear at me. I've never liked strip mining, but I'm addicted to cheap electricity. But as long as the utilities are being required to build cleaner, more expensive power plants, it's probably time for the companies that mine coal to get with the program, too.

But that's a topic for another time.

Back to the buzzards: When my youngest was in pre-school, I bought a $4 bargain book called "Vultures: Nature's Ghastly Gourmet." He was thrilled with the photos of buzzards eating dead animals, and he found it interesting when I read to him the part about how buzzards start at two or three particular points on a carcass and work inward. He took the book to preschool to show his teacher and her assistant. They didn't see the fascination my son had with buzzards. Oh well.

Odds and ends, 3/24/08

So last week the Hillary Clinton campaign sent us a news release about all the wonderful stuff she wants to do for veterans. Not surprising, as she was going to be at the American Legion here in town that same day. So I read down the list and thought, wow, this is going to be expensive. So I called her campaign people to ask how she was going to pay for all that.

They didn't want to talk to me. They said to look at her Web site. I looked, and under veterans issues I found word for word the news release they e-mailed to me. I did a little looking around otherwise, and still found no mention of how she was going to pay for all this stuff.

So I e-mailed her campaign people and asked this question: "How much would these programs cost in a given year?"

So far, I have not received a response. And I do not expect one.

###

Tomorrow I plan to post some photos of birds I have seen lately. Namely some crows at Huntington High School and some buzzards in Lawrence County, Ohio. I didn't want to get too close to the buzzards. For one thing, they might have flown away. For another, their primary means of self-defense is to vomit on intruders, and I can think of few things more disgusting than buzzard vomit.

Sorry if I offended anyone with that last paragraph.

###

BusinessWeek.com had an article explaining why ExxonMobil isn't increasing production of oil, even though it is making money hand over fist doing so. It's a complicated read, but it has information on the international oil trade, such as details of development deals with exporting nations, that I had not read before.

Light posting this week

I've been fighting a cold most of this week, and today I had to spend time cleaning up our reader forums.

So let me apologize for the light posting this week, and let me close the week with an announcement that came in the mail. It came to our Life editor Robyn Rison, but she passed it on to me because I was one of two or three people in the newsroom who would care.

Here is the announcement in its entirety, sent to media in a wide area:

Dolly Parton invites you and one guest to share in her special tribute to Porter Wagoner.

Saturday, April 12, at Dollywood

VIP Reception at 9 a.m. in Adventures in Imagination

Rose Planting Ceremony at 10 a.m.

Musical Tribute at 1:15 p.m. in PD's Celebrity Theatre

Also, Dolly unveils an ew Porter Wagoner exhibit in her Chasinbg Rainbows museum.

It goes on with RSVP information.

The stationery has an illustration of Porter and Dolly.

It's good that someone gives this television pioneer the tribute he deserves.

In college, my Beatles-loving friends couldn't understand my enjoyment of country music. I assume they have matured in the meantime. Maybe they can put Johnny, Willie, Merle, Waylon, Tom T., Loretta, George, Tammy, Patsy, Hank and others (forgive me for not naming them) on the same plane with John, Paul, George and Ringo. If not, they're not worth a good (whatever).

Another Byrd legacy in Huntington?

We have the Robert C. Byrd Institute for Advanced Flexible Manufacturing, the Robert C. Byrd Bridge, the Robert C. Byrd Center for Rural Health and the Robert C. Byrd Biotechnology Science Center. That does not include the Robert C. Byrd Clinical Addition to the VA Medical Center in Spring Valley or the Robert C. Byrd Locks and Dam on the Ohio River about 30 miles upriver of Huntington.

Is the Robert C. Byrd Clinical Center at hand?

Two days ago, I missed a turn near Ritter Park and detoured over to 14th Street to get where I needed to go. Behind the new clinic built on the site of Fairfield Stadium (Olde Fairfielde to Ernie Salvatore fans), I saw this sign:

So I swung around to the front, and I saw this high up on the building:

What are we to make of this? Will it be the senior senator's name on the building, or maybe the name of his late wife? Is the cover still there because the senator is not healthy enough to travel to Huntington for a ceremony honoring him?

If you look here, you see the place named as the "Byrd Clincial Center," with no first name. The photo of the building on the official Web site must have been taken before the sign was put up o the front.


Whatever is under the cover is too wide to be merely "Byrd" unless we're talking some really, really wide letters.


I checked our archives, and Byrd takes credit for securing earmarks totalling $11 million to cover the $24 million cost of the center. Those numbers could be outdated by now.

Stay tuned.

Modern car design frustrates first responders?

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Capt. Clint Roberts makes his living cutting accident victims out of hideously mangled vehicles, but even he could hardly believe it when two people in a 2007 midsize car survived a head-on crash with a full-sized pickup last year.

The Ford Fusion’s reinforced steel construction probably saved the lives of the 18-year-old driver and his 16-year-old passenger. But Roberts said it gave his Hillsborough County Fire Rescue crew fits as they tried to free them last November.

Because hydraulic cutters couldn’t shear the roof posts, rescue workers had to turn to heavy-duty electric saws, replacing blade after blade as they dulled on the rugged material.

“It was just beating the snot out of the tools,” adding minutes and delaying medical treatment, Roberts said.

There is no question that today’s cars save lives by cocooning motorists in reinforced alloys, impact-absorbing crumple zones and as many as a dozen air bags.

But in interviews with The Associated Press, rescue officials and experts from around the United States said the new technology is also hindering extrication of injured people, increasingly forcing crews to work deeper into the critical “golden hour” between accident and treatment by emergency room doctors. On many 2005 and later cars, an extrication that once took 10 or 15 minutes can now take twice that or longer.

The AP article lists other problems. But I'm just happy that my 2005 car is a lot safer in an impact than my 1976 subcompact was.

I may have said this before, but . . .

A few months ago, I saw a Porsche 924 with a "For Sale" sign in the window in a parking lot along U.S. 60. I stopped to look at it. I figured it was a late 1970s model. No airbag, no antilock brake, probably no collapsing steering column, no good reinforced body panels or cumple zones ... and no interest by me in buying it.

I didn't have the money, but that's beside the point. I don't want to go back to 1970s engineering and design if that's what it takes to save a few miles per gallon.

Newspaper business

A coworker handed me a copy of a magazine article about how bad the newspaper industry is. Several major newspapers have slashed their newsroom staffs as advertising -- classified advertising in particular -- and circulation has declined.

A couple of things leaped out at me from that article. One was that some of these newsrooms may have been overstaffed to begin with. I really don't know. Second is that the entire judgment that newspapers are endangered is based on the financial realities of a select group of major metro papers. The article mentioned the New York Times and some other papers, but not the Washington Post, for example.

The most glaring problem with the article is that it focused on the major metro dailies. One thing I learned as a short-term employee of GateHouse is that the money in newspapers is not in owning the big newspaper in the central city. It's in owning the smaller papers in the suburbs that ring the central city. The big paper can't cover every ball game or every parade in its circulation area, but the smaller paper can make a pretty good run at it.

When you hear about newspapers dying, ask which newspapers. True, The Herald-Dispatch's circulation numbers are down compared to a few years ago, as just about every newspaper's numbers are. But I don't think things are as bad here as the guys at the metros say they are there.

Hillary! is coming

So Hillary Clinton plans to visit Huntington on Wednesdsay, although her handlers have not yet said where or when.

Maybe she will give us a sound bite as infamous as the one John Kerry gave us when he was here. You know, the one about voting for something before voting against it.

Regular residents of Ritter Park

So I had a few extra minutes this weekend between this kid this and that kid that. I made a side trip to Ritter Park and got a few pictures of the park's regular residents.

The only regret of the weekend is that I had to make two trips to Huntington High School and I never got to see the hawk that comes by there. I could have gotten him a few days ago. He was on a light pole within feet of me, but I didn't have my camera. From now on, every time I have to go up to HHS, I'm taking a camera, because I'm getting that hawk.

Stupid, naive or as calculating as a Clinton?

Back in the late 1970s or early 1980s, a member of the Ironton City Council told me he had attended a training session run by his employer. The topic of the session was dealing with news media. The one thing he remembered was a tape of someone talking to a TV reporter. The subject of the "interview" did not realize the camera was running, and its microphone caught everything he said.

You can figure out the moral of that story.

So how can a TV anchor be so stupid or naive in the Internet age? Or is she making up a story to cover up something she should have known better than doing?

CLEVELAND (AP) — Hustler Inc. said Thursday it will seek the dismissal of a lawsuit filed over the publication of a photograph of a TV newswoman who danced naked in a wet T-shirt contest.

Jeffrey Reina, a lawyer who represents the company, said Hustler Magazine published the photo in a news story and is protected by the First Amendment.

The lawsuit, filed by Catherine Bosley in late February in U.S. District Court, accuses Hustler and its parent, LFP Inc., both based in Beverly Hills, Calif., of copyright infringement.

It says Bosley obtained ownership of photos and videos of the contest following litigation in federal court and registered them with the U.S. Copyright Office in 2004.

Bosley was on vacation when the images were taken in 2003 at a Key West, Fla., bar. She resigned from WKBN-TV in Youngstown after images and video of her began showing up on the Web. She now works as an anchor/reporter for WOIO-TV in Cleveland. ...

Bosley won $250 in a tie for first place in the contest and has said she had not given anyone permission to use her picture. She has testified that she would not have participated in the contest if she knew pictures would turn up on the Web.

Riiiiiight. Was she really that unthinking or naive, or does she think we're gullible?

It doesn't seem to have hurt her career that much, although an anchor slot for a morning network news show may be out of reach now.

I know there is no expectation of privacy in a public place, but it's a shame that a person can't fall on his backside on an icy sidewalk without the possibility of it being on the Web for all to see.

Little Orphan Annie got too political for the HD

Apparently The Herald-Dispatch made the pages of Time magazine in 1935 when it stopped running the Little Orphan Annie comic strip because the writer or writers had begin making political statements.

The editor of The Herald-Dispatch objected to a story line that appeared to promote "rugged individualism." There was an argument over Progressive Republicanism vs. Torie Republicanism, whatever those were.

If you want to read the article, it's here.

Wow. Seventy years ago, people objected to politics in comic strips. Now they almost demand it.

The Godpigeon

This is my latest challenge. This is the Godpigeon I referred to earlier. He doesn't like me getting close enough to get a clear photo. This is the best I have. He's probably the biggest cardinal among the many that gather at the bird feeder hanging from my backyard apple tree. The other day, I put some seed on something else so I could get a clear shot at him, but he wouldn't let me get near enough to get a clear image. Sooner or later, I'm getting him, though.

For those not familiar with the Goodfeathers, they were a cartoon on the Animaniacs show of the 1990s. I assume they were based on the movie "Goodfellas." The Goodfeathers were Bobby (voiced by a Robert DeNiro soundalike), Pesto (Joe Pesci soundalike) and Squit (a Ray Liotta soundalike). They all paid allegiance to the Godpigeon, a large, rotund bird who speaking mock Italian in a Marlon Brando raspy whisper.

Anyway, that's why I call this bird the Godpigeon. Look at that face. He doesn't know it yet, but he's posing for a closeup. I'm making him an offer he can't refuse.

I'm not a nature expert. There may be a good reason this bird looks like this. Unless someone gives me a good reason otherwise, the name sticks.

More global warming whatever

Another person who wants to impose all sorts of anti-global warming measures on the rest of us but whose own personal needs outweigh his devotion to the environment:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who once joked that Sacramento was "death," apparently doesn't want to spend many nights in the graveyard.

As the Los Angeles Times reported last week, the governor has been spending nearly every night in his Brentwood mansion, shuttling between Sacramento and Southern California in his private jet. ...

And what about the cost to the environment? The governor's staff says he purchases "carbon credits." Such credits are aimed at offsetting the greenhouse gases generated by his flights but do nothing about the particulates and smog-forming compounds they spew into the air. ...

The link is here. I don't know who said it first, but he/she said it best: I'll believe global warming is a crisis when the people who believe in it act as if it is. Or something like that.

###

On a related topic, I heard on the radio last week that global warming has slowed down or stopped, considering the most recent record was set in 1998. I haven't verified that, but I do know that our northern neighbors (Canada, not Findlay, Ohio) are in their worst winter in years thanks to La Nina, and there's no relief in sight. According to one news article, most of Canada';s snow falls in March, and they're expecting more soon.

There are plenty of such stories to read. Go to Google News and search for "Canada" and "winter" and see what you get. For one such story, go here.

No wonder Al Gore and his followers have been so quiet lately.

Odds and ends, 3/11/08

I forget to mention that yesterday was my father's birthday. If were alive, he would be 116 now. I'm probably the only person at The Herald-Dispatch with a parent born during the Benjamin Harrison administration.

###

From today's news update:

A Mason County man faces up to 20 years in federal prison after he pleaded guilty to a marijuana charge this week.

Keith Nelson of Southside, W.Va., was indicted by a federal grand jury in September 2007. He was 24-years-old at the time of the indictment, which had charged him with manufacturing marijuana by growing and cultivating at least 100 plants in the Chief Cornstalk Wildlife Management Area.

If you're going to grow a big crop, don't do it on public land.

###

WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) — The Division of Highways is getting ready to chronicle the history of more than 3,000 of the state’s bridges.

Highways senior historian Mike Wilson says the agency wants to survey and identify spans that might be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

Wilson says more than 3,000 bridges were built prior to 1965 and it’s hoped each will be rated based on its design, workmanship and materials used. A bridge might also be considered based on its association with a historical event or person.The survey should take about three years to complete.

Not trying to be a smart-aleck here (for once), but I don't know if we have any truly historic bridges in this part of West Virginia. We have a lot of old ones, but none that I can think of that would be called historic.

None of the Ohio River bridges in this region of WV were built before 1965. The only bridge around here that I can remember people claiming to be historic is the old one at Martha, but I know of no reason why it should be considered so other than its age. Its piers block the Guyandotte River, and sooner or later it will become more of a safety menace than it is now.

I have yet to hear of anyone claiming the old highway bridges over the Guyandotte as being historic.

Does anyone else know of any "historic" local bridges around here, other than the Milton covered bridge?

New gasoline price record, 3/11/08

Speedway raised the price of its gasoline another 10 cents today, bringing the pump price for 87-octane to $3.499 a gallon, which beats the previous local record of $3.449 a gallon set on May 22, 2007.

I keep track of record prices here in Huntington. This is what I have recorded in recent years:

8/5/05 $2.459

8/8/05 $2.499

8/11/05 $2.559

8/15/05 $2.699

8/31/05 $3.099

9/1/05 $3.119

8/3/06 $3.159

5/3/07 $3.199

5/15/07 $3.299

5/22/07 $3.449

3/11/08 $3.499

And to think we once thought $2.46 was high. That was quite a runup in August 2005, wasn't it? Going into the Labor Day weekend, prices went up more than 56 cents in a month's time. Too bad I didn't record what the price was on 8/4/05.

A few images from this weekend's snow

Now that I can upload images again, here are some that I shot this past weekend from what I hope is the last significant snowfall of the winter.

First, a couple of frequent visitors to my backyard. I have some more photos of these guys including one I call the Godpigeon (for those of you familiar with the Goodfeathers cartoons from the 1990s). I may have a closeup photo of him later this week.

And another visitor.

My roof at eveningtime.

And a small hill along U.S. 35 southeast of Jackson, Ohio.

Gasoline prices regionally

I know there can be many variables in prices of commodities. But gasoline is one that somewhere must have a political component along with an economic one. Having said that, looking at those big numbers on the signs out front make me wonder what goes on come pricing time.

Why, I wonder, does a certain retailer list the following prices per gallon of the same commodity in the following communities:

Huntington: $3.399
Gallipolis, Ohio: $3.149
Proctorville, Ohio: $3.289
Catlettsburg, Ky.: $3.259
Ironton, Ohio: $3.269

###

Having said all that, I ran some numbers through Excel. Assuming my car has a 15-gallon tank, it could cost anywhere from $47.24 to $50.99 to fill up, a difference of $3.75, or more than one gallon's worth.

Or, let's say I want to spend $50 for a fillup. I could get from 14.71 gallons to 15.88 gallons. At 20 mpg, I would get an extra 23 miles or so by buying in Gallipolis instead of Huntington. But Gallipolis is more than 23 miles from here, so I gain nothing by making a trip up there just to buy gas.

No fireplaces and CSX ownership

So now the global warming crowd is saying we must cease producing carbon dioxide altogether.

The task of cutting greenhouse gas emissions enough to avert a dangerous rise in global temperatures may be far more difficult than previous research suggested, say scientists who have just published studies indicating that it would require the world to cease carbon emissions altogether within a matter of decades.

Their findings, published in separate journals over the past few weeks, suggest that both industrialized and developing nations must wean themselves off fossil fuels by as early as mid-century in order to prevent warming that could change precipitation patterns and dry up sources of water worldwide.

Using advanced computer models to factor in deep-sea warming and other aspects of the carbon cycle that naturally creates and removes carbon dioxide (CO2), the scientists, from countries including the United States, Canada and Germany, are delivering a simple message: The world must bring carbon emissions down to near zero to keep temperatures from rising further.

"The question is, what if we don't want the Earth to warm anymore?" asked Carnegie Institution senior scientist Ken Caldeira, co-author of a paper published last week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters. "The answer implies a much more radical change to our energy system than people are thinking about."

Yeah, like everyone will stop lighting fires between now and 2050.

Pardon my while I doubt, and while I enjoy my fireplace.

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Make of this next what you will. It's from a news release issued by Nick Rahall's office today.

WASHINGTON, DC – During a recent House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Railroads, Pipelines, and Hazardous Materials hearing entitled “Investment in the Rail Industry” U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall (D-WV) expressed his concerns about the future of the railroad industry in southern West Virginia, including the increased influence of a foreign-based hedge fund on the CSX Railroad and the Greenbrier Resort.

“After many years of decline, the railroad industry is on its way to regaining its status as a crucial component of the American economy,” said Rahall. “Now, more than ever, we must pay careful attention to any investment or business transaction regarding railroads that could jeopardize the transportation infrastructure and economy of our Nation.”

As Vice-Chairman and long-time member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Rahall has been deeply involved in the revitalization of the railroad industry across the Nation, especially in West Virginia. ...

During the hearing, Rahall questioned representatives from the Children’s Investment Fund (TCI)—an activist hedge fund based in London and registered in the Cayman Islands—about their future intentions involving CSX. TCI’s increased interest in CSX has raised many concerns due to the tendency of hedge funds to focus on the “short-term” financial outlook and the fact that TCI is foreign-owned and, therefore, not regulated by the Federal Securities and Exchange Commission (FEC).

Rahall also expressed his concerns for the future of the CSX-owned Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs. TCI’s increased involvement in management of CSX could lead to the sale of the resort to a hotel chain, bringing the management of the 230 year-old estate into question. The Greenbrier Resort employs over 1,500 southern West Virginians and is one of the largest tourist attractions in the State. ...

This is one of those things that you have to ask a basic question about. How much of our critical industry and infrastructure do we want to allow to be controlled by foreign interests? We need the capability to produce our own food, medicines, basic metals and transportation equipment. I don't know how much control TCI has over CSX, but it is one of those things that bears watching.

I'm not saying it's time to intervene, but it's something we have to watch. The Greenbrier doesn't concern me. CSX Transportation does.

Or Rahall could be all wrong on this. I really don't know.

West Virginia's largest high schools

Following up on a post from last week, here are the largest high schools in West Virginia and their enrollments. All are grades 9-12 unless otherwise noted:

Jefferson High, Jefferson County, 2,369

Cabell Midland High, Cabell County, 1,846

Wheeling Park High, Ohio County, 1,743

Morgantown High, Monongalia, 1,664

Hedgesville High, Berkeley County, 1,654

Martinsburg High, Berkeley County, 1,654

Huntington High, Cabell County, 1,590

Musselman High, Berkeley County, 1,476

Woodrow Wilson High, Raleigh County, 1,390

John Marshall High, Marshall County, 1,357

Parkersburg and Parkersburg South are 10-11-12 schools. Had they had ninth graders, they would have made this list.

Last snow of winter 2008 (I hope)

Although my boys disagree with me, I hope we have seen the last large snowfall of this winter. I'm ready for spring.

Having said that, I thought I would share a few photos I managed to take over the weekend.

But for some reason these computers will not let me upload the photos. So if it's a day or two from now and you see winter photos on here while the temperatures outside are gorgeous, you will know why.

Odds and ends 3/7/08

West Virginia has three high schools (9-12) that also have pre-K enrollment. Those are Brooke High in Brooke County, Capital High in Kanawha County and Greenbrier East High in Greenbrier County.

The state has two other schools with pre-K through 12th grade. They are Union Educational Complex in Grant County and Pickens Elementary/High School in Randolph County.

No comment. Just facts. I just put myself in the place of the parent of a high school student who has a child and ask where that child could or should be during the school day -- and why my daughter should be, too. No, my daughter is not in that situation. But if she were . . .

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Other than that, I have very few opinions today for some reason. So I'll see you all on Monday.

More thoughts on Beverly Hills-Enslow consolidation

Monday, while I was driving around looking for potholes to measure, I took the opportunity to drive past Peyton Elementary in the Rotary Park neighborhood. I had heard it was landlocked, and I had suspicions.

Namely, that if Beverly Hills and Enslow middle schools are consolidated in a new building somewhere, that the existing Beverly Hills building will be converted into an elementary school housing kids from Peyton and Geneva-Kent. As I drove around the school and down a hill, I realized how close Peyton is to the Marcum Terrace low-income apartments.

And then I wondered how the Geneva-Kent parents would react to such a consolidation. Probably not too favorably.

This is something the Cabell County Board of Education will have to address somehow. My kids aren't in the Geneva-Kent or Peyton attendance areas, so I don't have a real dog in this fight except that I'm a Cabell County taxpayer, too.

There may or may not be a hidden agenda here. I don't know. But surely it has to be in the minds of school officials.

Odds and ends, 3/6/08

I was thinking yesterday about the possible economic problems this nation will face, and I did some math. The last real round of inflation and recession or depression, depending on whether you lived in the Rust Belt or the Sun Belt, was in the early 1980s. About 25 years ago. A lot of people approaching their 40s have little idea what that was like then. Remember when inflation ate away at everything, interest rates were high and credit was not easy to get?

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Yesterday evening, I came $1.90 short. I was expecting to put $50 worth of gas in my car, but my 14.58 gallons came only to $48.10. I'm sure I'll have another opportunity soon.

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More to come.

Odds and ends, 3/5/08

Two days ago, I was out measuring potholes. This morning, I was on Washington Boulevard, and it looks to me like the holes in front of the Presbyterian Church are getting bigger and bigger. I should say one of the holes, because the other was under water and not visible. I pity the person(s) who hit it today.

Huntington is not the only city in West Virginia or the Rust Belt to have problems with its infrastructure. Many of Huntington's problems can be found in Columbus or any other large or medium-sized city in this part of the USA. It just seems that we're ahead of the curve on having to deal with a lot of these problems, and we're not able to. Or we don't have the will to.

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Now that the Ohio primary is over, we can listen to radio without hearing Barack Obama talking about NAFTA. One thing bothered me about his commercials. He blamed NAFTA for Delphi's moving jobs out of Ohio to Mexico and then to China. It sounds to me like the jobs moved from Ohio to China, and they would be in China even without NAFTA. So how is NAFTA to blame?

Honesty would dictate that we ask what the real reasons were for Delphi moving jobs out of Ohio -- other than NAFTA.

Here's how one person put it in the Christian Science Monitor:

"It's nice to blame the bogeyman, rather than the failed business strategies of Ford, GM, or Chrysler," says Ned Hill, an economist at Cleveland State University. "And middle-class anxiety is a real issue." The bickering isn't so much over the candidates' current positions on NAFTA – both are eager to tell Ohioans just how much they dislike the pact and how quickly they would renegotiate a better deal – but how consistent they've been in that stance in the past.

But who wants to talk about failed business strategies?

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Speaking of Obama's radio ads, I was out and about on Monday and I heard at least one on Glenn Beck's radio show. It may have been a local buy, but wouldn't most people consider possible Obama voters and Glenn Beck listeners to be two different demographic groups? How many Obama supporters listen to Beck?

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The Democratic convention could come down to the old days where we sat in front of our black-and-white TVs and watched the roll call of states and people announcing the delegate count for each candidate.

That would be cool, but it's not going to happen. Deals will be made, votes will be counted and everyone will be smiles and giggles when the convention begins. No drama or anything.

My best guess is that if Obama ends the primary season with the most votes, but Clinton uses her establishment influence to wrest the nomination away from him, a lot of disappointed people will go to McCain or sit it out. Just a guess. I could be wrong. It happens about three times a year.

Mountaintop removal mining and camel food

So how does a Kentucky legislator introduce legislation to ban mountaintop removal mining if previous efforts have failed?

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Lawmakers have begun hearings on a proposal that could effectively halt mountaintop removal coal mining.

State Rep. Don Pasley of Winchester maneuvered the proposal into a bill that would exempt camel food from the state sales tax. The move allowed the bill to be considered in the House Appropriations and Revenue Committee on Tuesday.

It would forbid coal companies from filling streams and valleys with soil and rock loosened in surface mining operations.

Appropriations and Revenue Chairman Harry Moberly is sponsor of the camel-tax bill. Moberly said the proposal had been denied a fair hearing in the House Natural Resources and Environmental Committee for the past four years.

Everyone who knew there was a grassroots effort to alleviate the burden caused by the sales tax on camel food, raise your hand.

On second thought, "camel food" might be slang for something I don't want to know about, so let's drop it.

If "camel food" really is food for camels, then introducing that bill so you could add the mountaintop removal mining provision later was pretty smart.

The dirtiest power plant?

These two photos were taken Sunday when I was up in Gallia County, Ohio. The day was nice, and I needed to get photos of the two power plants up there. The top one is the Gavin plant, owned by AEP. The bottom one is Kyger Creek, owned by Ohio Valley Electric Corp.

Gavin is interesting because for years it was held out as the largest contributor to acid rain (Whatever happened to acid rain? Was it put out of action by global warming?). Greenpeace even had a media protest event there in 1984. But things have changed.

A couple of weeks ago, the Toxic Release Inventory for 2006 came out. I did the math to see how bad Gavin was. Six years ago, photographer Lori Wolfe and I spent a day in the town of Cheshire, Ohio, next to the Gavin plant, after AEP said it would buy out anyone in the town who wanted to sell. Right now, there may be a dozen houses left in the old Cheshire.

But how bad is Gavin today? Well, I totalled the air and land disposal of pollutants from 10 power plants in this region. Gavin was the cleanest when it came to air pollution, but it had the highest amount of waste going to land disposal, probably because of its air pollution reduction system. If you want to see the numbers, here they are. These are for pounds of emissions into the air, and they are ranked most to least:

Amos, Putnam County WV: 19,146,001

Stuart, Adams County OH: 10,868,851

Big Sandy, Lawrence County KY: 6,858,888

Mountaineer, Mason County WV: 5,495,988

Willow Island, Pleasants County WV: 5,325,298

Kyger Creek, Gallia County OH: 4,928,765

Philip Sporn, Mason County WV: 4,650,822

Killen, Adams County OH: 2,607,275

Kanawha River, Kanawha County WV: 2,022,455

Gavin, Gallia County OH: 1,742,520

This is not to defend Gavin. There was a reason AEP bought out most of the people in Cheshire. AEP spent millions of dollars on pollution control equipment at Gavin so it could comply with new standards set by the federal Clean Air Act. But two control systems interacted and formed new pollution. On the hot, humid days of summer 2001, a blue fog of sulfuric acid descended on the town a dozen or more times, burning eyes and choking throats.

A few weeks ago, when a similar haze was reported in eastern Putnam County and western Kanawha County, those of us who remembered what happened in Cheshire figured out what had happened before WV officials determined the cause.

Cheshire is growing again. While most of old Cheshire is gone, the village has been able to annex enough land to increase its population, which had shrunk to about 21, by another 120 or so. We'll have an idea when the Census Bureau releases its 2007 population estimates for cities and places later this month.

But Gavin appears to be off the list of America's dirtiest power plants.

Spring is coming

Sunday and Monday were great, weren't they? Then went I went to take out the trash this morning so Allied Waste couold collect it, all I saw were rain and mud.

Monday in particular reminded me why spring is my favorite season. It used to be that May was my favorite month, but nowadays I'm partial to April.

After all these days of gray skies, it was refreshing to see blue again. We're back to gray today. But it was fun while it lasted.

More newspaper layoffs

Newsday has become the latest big-city newspaper to announce layoffs.

It's a tough time for a young person to break into this business. If there are any of you out there who want my advice, let me know.

First thing I'll tell you, use this job as a stepping stone to a better one down the line. If you're not advancing, you need to get out.

If you're entering college, don't major in journalism. Find a field that interests you and major in it. Minor in journalism so you will have the minimal skills to go with a knowledge base that a lot of young reporters don't have.

And don't look down your nose at corporate America. People wouldn't believe how much of that attitude I have encountered from college kids in the past 30-some years. It sounds good to a 20-year-old, but ultimately it's a totally ignorant attitude.

And don't believe everything your professors tell/told you.

Potholes

So, in Sunday's paper was a story saying Huntington Mayor David Felinton put no money for street paving in the budget. That was a shocker, because this is an election year, and the only time the user fee has been used for paving was four years ago when Felinton ran for re-election.

So naturally, tomorrow's editorial will be on the topic. I drove around town a bit looking both for potholes and streets so bad that patching won't do. I found at least three in the latter category.

But we had no recent photos of potholes or rough patches on city-maintained streets, and we didn't have a photographer available, so I had to grab a point-and-shoot camera and take some photos myself.

The photo running in tomorrow's paper is on 9th Avenue, where a pothole is migrating west. What I mean is, there are two patched holes, and in a straight line is a newer, unpatched hole where you can see the old brick street.

How long can Huntington allow its basic infrastructure to fall apart? What happens when some streets get so bad they can no longer be patched?