18 August 2010

Mid-Week Randomosity - UPDATED

Headline of the Day Dept: The local news is dominated by former Senator Ted Stevens' funeral today, on the northeast side of town. Fortunately, I'm far away from the congestion caused thereby. The Vice-President is here, along with Senator Mitch McConnell and Daniel Inouye, who was Ted's "brother" in the Senate. A local TV station was to stream live coverage, but it wouldn't work on my office PC.

Let's Talk About the Weather Dept: The sun came out this morning, and has been in & out all day. A day without rain is ... well, strange. We had 31 rainy days in a row, breaking a 59-year-old record. The oh-so-helpful app on weather.com says because we have sun, the "watering need is high." I do wonder if anyone was conscious when that one was added to the page. But the forecast calls for sun through Saturday, and then again for most of next week. I'm not getting my hopes up, because a) it's the beginning of our "rainy season", and b) it's only weather.com, after all.

Local Politics Remain Low-Key Dept: With our primary election coming up on the 24th, I have to say there hasn't been TOO much mud-slinging between the candidates ... although one campaign seems to be coming apart, internally. UPDATE: It seems I spoke prematurely; local polls (which have not received much local coverage) indicate that Joe Miller is neck-and-neck with Lisa Murkowski (incumbent RINO) for the U.S. Senate, and may even be a point or two ahead.

Money Money Money Dept: I see that the New York Times (which apparently has nothing better to do) is lambasting Alaska for accepting federal dollars while protesting big government. I must say this: I am no fan of earmarks. Pork is pork, and I'm not responsible for whatever funds came this way because of Ted Stevens or any other Alaska politician. But it's also true that when Ted was first elected to the Senate, much of Alaska was undeveloped and dirt-poor. Anchorage had gravel streets, outside of the downtown area, and the airport was pretty ... let's just say it was rural, okay?

Having admitted that earmarked monies turned a nearly third-world territory into a modern state, I think it's also possible that many Alaskans - including me - would be perfectly happy with far fewer of those dollars in exchange for the fine federal hand being removed from our everyday affairs. Just sayin'.

That's about all for now. Thanks for stopping by.

6 comments:

joated said...

The NYT believes only NYC should get any federal dollars. Even then they would limit the amount for most of the cities boros. The world, according to them, begins, ends and revolves around Manhattan.

"The paper of record" is sorely scratched if not completely broken.

Steven M Nielson said...

What are your campaigns of note way up north, and whose campaign is unravelling? Just a morbid curiousity, I suppose!

Rev. Paul said...

Steven, the "big" races here are for Governor & the U.S. Senate seat held by Lisa Murkowski. The campaign which is struggling is Joe Miller's, challenging Lisa for the Republican primary. There have been some issues regarding his assertions on her voting record, and his staff seems to be battling internally - if you believe what's being printed in the local paper.

Rev. Paul said...

Update: @Steven, as noted in the text, the unfolding drama in Joe Miller's campaign appears to be a tempest in a teapot. It may even be an invention of the left-leaning local newspaper, rather than anything of significance.

DR said...

I really like Joe Miller. I think he would be a vast improvment. I spend a lot of time following the Senate and Murkowski has acted like another McCain, in my opinion.

I understand why people would want out-of-staters to stay out of their business, but the Senate effects us all now. If we do not elect strict Constitutionalists there will be no Republic left. Thank you Rev. Paul for all your work on behalf of our Republic.

Steven M Nielson said...

Thanks for the update... After watching the ad on your latest post, then reading this comment, my heart was heavy for a second. It figures that the liberal papers would go straight to a campaign of disinformation - the day after the GOP candidate, Dino Rossi, was picked, the Seattle Times ran an online headline calling for information to smear him... right there on the website, header size and everything... "Submit your information here" it said!

Can you believe that?