The Asheville Citizen-Times ran this piece about a couple that had their contract with a ski resort cancelled because they got married in Mass. From the article:

Scherer says the ski area owners told her and Balfour that their sexual orientation and marriage was part of the reason their agreement was terminated. Scherer said the Wolf Laurel work, which she had done the past two seasons, accounted for about $20,000 in income for her company, nearly half of her annual gross.

Wolf Laurel Ski Area owner Orville English declined to comment on the allegations Tuesday, while co-owner Rick Bussey said, “It’s not wise for us to get in a verbal battle.” He described Wolf Laurel as a family-oriented resort.

There has been a lot of back and forth between our local officials and our federal officials recently. One incident is the op-ed piece by Easley calling out the federal representatives for create a "budgetary black hole" and rigging the system against the poor here. The other is Sue Myrick attacking Basnight and Black in a letter, which Jim Black responded to in kind. WRAL has an account of the interaction here.

I have held back on blogging about these incidents since I do not really consider them worthy of our time in and of themselves; however, the existence of these two public debates simultaneously is interesting.

BuyBlue has announced that it will be following the political donations of a number House races this year. On their list is NC-11 where Heath Shuler is looking to unseat Charles Taylor. (link here).

I have been super busy today. I was negotiating to buy a house, and just when we thought that we were just down to money and closing date the owner decided that she wants to rip up the yard because a bush has been in the family for generations (which I do not even think is possible by the way). Anyway, I wanted to pass on this quick link to a new site dedicated to bring better public transportation to the Triangle, including a regional rail.

The site is here. It evens includes a petition to sign for those of us into action (I did it). I cannot go into all the reasons that we need more public transportation right now, so I will just leave you with three: reasonable commutes, reducing pollution, and getting poor people to work without wasting all the money that they earn on gas. If you need more, check some of my earlier posts here.

With all the noise about the dreaded 2.8 cent increase in the gas tax, one group is actually telling the voters the truth. As Republicans and some Democratic lawmakers are holding fake hearings on the tax to gain votes, the Petroleum Marketers, of all people, are stating that the tax does not affect prices. From WRAL:

Many drivers think they'll save big if the legislature acts. But the executive director of the North Carolina Petroleum Marketers Association doesn’t agree.