TarGator's blog

As states are jumping all over themselves to move primaries into February and even January, North Carolina has maintained its primary in May. Even if you are not a fan of an early primary season, the benefits to North Carolina for moving up its election are undeniable.

How the costs of a society that relies on automobiles stack up?

This unconfirmed report of threats aimed at preventing people from talking to local bloggers, or else risk their ability to be written about in the N&O, comes from a reputable source. I do not know the reality of this situation, but it is sad that these claims seem plausible:

Speaking of the N&O (and let's just go ahead and throw in the TBJ since they have thrown themselves into this situation as well), I will inform all of you--especially those who are considering applying for a contributor position here--that it has come to my attention that both publications supposedly consider Raleighing to now be a threat to their business. Several of my best sources have pleaded with me to refrain from posting insider information as those publications have apparently stated that they will not feature content that has first been made public on Raleighing.com. I, of course, have not been able to 100% substantiate this information, but the fact that more than a few of my sources have independently approached me with the same request is quite curious.

The North Carolina Democratic Party has this post calling out John McCain for his trip to Charlotte to raise the money that he claims to be against:

As the Washington Post recently reported, McCain, the presidential candidate is hypocritically employing the very same fundraising tactics he spent years criticizing and trying to change.

While I do think that John McCain is a power-hungry gumby-like politician who twists his views depending on whatever suits him, I do not think that this is a fair criticism and also have doubts about whether the state party should be getting into this.

First, the criticism is unfair because John McCain should not have to run for president with a hand tied behind his back just because he is closer to the sane, rational position of limitting campaign contributions than other Republicans.

We take as a fact that the News & Observer is not the best paper in the world: it might not get the facts right all the time, they may not be particularly insightful, they may not be able to analyze national politics, and have a tendency to pander to the right. But I never thought that the N&O would take the precious resources that are left to them after the buyout and try to become a tabloid for UNC (not that I could pick a better school to be a tabloid for). This week it looks like they have.

The incident was this: A UNC male student staged what at first appears to be a singing valentine to his girlfriend (a NC State student) in the Pit at UNC [the Pit is the main student hang-out during the day on UNC's campus, being next to the library, the gym, some classrooms, and most importantly the food court]. With cameras rolling and a crowd formed, the singing started and then after the singing there was a vicious breakup, complete with F-bombs, personal attacks, and derisive comments on the promiscuity of women at NC State. Problem is that the incident was clearly staged and there is good liklihood that the entire scene was faked. (if you want to watch just search "Pit breakup" in YouTube; I do not want to sully our frontpage with this stuff).

Clinton takes responsibility for Iraq war vote. Well, I am glad that she is not claiming that someone else entered the Senate floor and cast the vote for her. Now if she can start working against the war, that would be something.

I was at a meeting of the Triangle Chapter NAIOP, a group of local developers and others involved in the commercial real estate industry, on Thursday and witnessed an event that should gives any of us that talk in public pause to ensure that we know who we are talking to.

Former Justice Bob Orr was scheduled to speak at the event. The speach showed great courage on the part of Orr who was speaking on the evils of economic incentives to a very business friendly group. Orr ignored the death stares to give numerous coherent arguments against the use of incentives or "subsidies" as he called them to businesses to relocate to North Carolina or expand here; the main focus of his speach were the famous incentives given to large corporations like Dell, Lenovo, and Google recently which were tied to the creation of jobs in the area. There are in fact some arguments against the use of incentives, but the one thing Justice Orr came back to, as might be expected from a Republican speaking to crowd of business Republicans, was that "no one in this crowd receives incentives" (essentially the if it does not directly benefit you, why bother argument). The problem with this argument became apparent when at the close of the meeting the president of the chapter asked who in the crowd had received subsidies as part of a deal; over half of the crowd raised their hands. Then the president asked how many received incentives more than once, and about a quarter of the group had. Then the president turned to the representatives of Progress Energy and stated that "I could ask this all day and Progress would keep their hands up."

I just got off a plane coming from a place that is in the 80's and landing in the wintery mix in Raleigh. At least I could find a little chicken soup for my political soul in this post from Kos on the rubber stamp senators from North Carolina and the fact that current election realities mean that Dole must actually go against this president, who she has proudly stood behind for the last four years:

Burr doesn't face reelection until 2010, so he doesn't have to pretend to have an "independent" bone in his body. He can be his true, rubber-stamping self. Dole, on the other hand, will have to perform rhetorical gymnastics to buck the growing anti-Bush and anti-war sentiment in her state despite being one of Bush's most loyal lieutenants.

We are currently under a year-long moratorium on new landfills in our state that was initiated in the last general assembly. This leaves collecting information on landfills and and passing meaningful legislation on the matter one of the biggest tasks facing this session of the general assembly.

Two major problems with the way landfill siting has occured is that localities are given exclusive control and there is no statewide fee for dumping trash at a landfill like there is in almost all other states. These two factors combined to make poor rural counties targets for large, environmentally hazardous landfills. Some of my past posts on landfills can be found here.

Yesterday, DENR came out in favor of two reforms that would significantly reduce the potential for North Carolina's rural areas ending up a magnet for out of state trash: 1) initiating a tipping fee and 2) having the State take more control of the approval process for the landfills. From WRAL:

Story:

GREENVILLE, N.C., January 14, 2007 - Hundreds of church members gathered today near a North Carolina church that burned Saturday night.

Another Baptist church caught fire about a mile away. A break-in was discovered at a third.

Authorities won't say if the fires were arson, but witnesses report seeing someone fleeing after one of the blazes began. Damage is estimated at more than a million dollars.