Your Grandfather's GOP

Bless their hearts, but a cabal on the Republican National Committee intends to force conservative orthodoxy on their elected leaders, fashioning a resolution that they intend to ram through at their end-of-January national meeting which says flat-out that George W. Bush has taken the country toward socialism. And men like Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Minority Leader John A. Boehner aided and abetted.

"Socialism." Might as well have accused Shrub of being a dirty, 5th-column Commie. Well, as a matter of fact...

We applaud this upwelling of The Pure in the National Republican Party and can't wait to see this played out.

Life Finds a Way

News this a.m. about so-called "abstinence pledges" ("I promise God and all His angels that I shall not fornicate until I am successfully and legally married, and then only with my successful and legal spouse...") makes us flash on this moment from "Jurassic Park":

Henry Wu: You're implying that a group composed entirely of female animals will... breed?

Dr. Ian Malcolm: No, I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way.

The fantasies of adults that somehow, given enough doses of super-religion, their teenaged children will not sniff out opportunities for unbridled sexuality -- and that, furthermore, to teach them how to protect themselves from disease/unwanted pregnancies is more vile than catching the disease/unwanted pregnancy -- has been dealt a scientific blow by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

A "large study" by the aforenamed group found that teenagers who had promised God they would remain virgins were just as likely to have premarital sex as heathen teenagers, but -- much worse -- they were "significantly less likely" to use condoms once they succumbed to carnal urges.

Oy.

But because this is scientific research and not divinely inspired wishful thinking, it will be ignored.

Dear Governor Easley...

Going to war with the news media for reporting the news ... not the most graceful exit we've seen.

Sincerely,
A Citizen

Laurelmor Has a New Owner

Scant details, as of yet.

Bottom Drops Out for Recyclables

It seems counter-intuitive to us, that the market for recycled cans, paper, plastic should have collapsed, since one might think that in a down-economy, salvaging use out of discards would be a smart move.

But no. High Point, N.C., is currently stockpiling recycled cans and paper because the market for them is so down that the city will lose money ... from what had been a fairly profitable transaction. Greensboro had projected a profit of $450,000 from its recycling program in fiscal 2008, until the bottom dropped out.

"We've seen prices where we have to pay to get rid of it," said a regional manager for North Carolina municipal recycling. Ouch.

What Conservatives Think Is Funny

Chip Saltsman, Tennessee Republican operative and campaign manager for Mike Huckabee, is a self-declared candidate for chair of the Republican National Committee, and he thought it would be cool to send out Christmas greetings to all 168 members of the Republican National Committee, who'll be voting for their new party chair come January, and to tuck in a bonus CD of Rush Limbaugh-inspired novelty songs, one of which was "Barack the Magic Negro." Other songs on the CD, all of which enjoyed some air time on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, include "John Edwards' Poverty Tour," "Wright Place, Wrong Pastor," "Love Client #9," "Ivory and Ebony," and "The Star Spanglish Banner."

Chip Saltsman thought it was funny, bless his heart. Others ... not so much.

"I am shocked and appalled," Mike Duncan, the current party chairman, said in a statement released Saturday. Mr. Duncan's shock, appalling as it was, might have been ramped up somewhat by the fact that he's running against Saltsman (and four others) to continue in his job as party chair.

Newt Gingrich was even more categorical in his denunciation: "This is so inappropriate that it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would use it."

Blah, blah, blah.

We wouldn't be talking about this even now except that as of today there's a new North Carolina wrinkle: Dr. Ada Fisher, a Salisbury doctor and one of only three black members of the Republican National Committee, wrote an open letter to Saltsman:

"Racist actions and deeds have no place in the party. The lack of sensitivity in understanding the historical election we just had and the challenges this nation faces as we must bind our wounds as well as bring our people together requires that we set aside our biases and search out those constitutional principles inherent in our nation's foundings and our parties operation which must undergrid us as we move forward."

Okay then. Dr. Ada Fisher, bless her heart, trying to talk a little racial sensitivity to the likes of Chip Saltsman ... not that that's going to help. And indeed, the next shoe to drop dropped just minutes ago, when Thunder Pig, a conservative western NC blogger, accused Fisher of a kind of partisan treachery with a posting headlined "Ada Fisher Joins Lefties, RINOs in a Racially Motivated Attack on RNC Chair Candidate."

Ada Fisher ought to be ashamed of herself!

For the record, Fisher herself had already come out in support of South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson as the new RNC chair. Also for the record, until approximately 38 minutes ago, Dawson was the member of a country club that wouldn't allow Dr. Ada Fisher through the front door.

Never mind that. And never mind, too, that Thunder Pig's high dudgeon directed at Ada Fisher for criticizing Saltsman does not so far seem to extend also to Mike Duncan and Newt Gingrich. Are they RINOs too?

The NC King of Special Interests

In an investigative series this year, the Charlotte Observer established this baseline fact about our state's poultry industry: "Weak enforcement, minimal fines and dwindling inspections have allowed poultry companies to operate largely unchecked, records show."

The toleration of a major industrial scofflaw in NC owes much to Republican Labor Secretary Cherie Berry (natch) but also to the man pictured here, Democratic state Senator Charles Albertson, who represents Duplin, Lenoir, and Sampson counties, which are knee-deep in the eviscera of meat-packing, both hog and chicken.

Last May Gov. Easley, convinced that the state's Labor Department was not enforcing safety laws, asked the General Assembly to approve money for more inspectors. Sen. Albertson blocked that initiative, according to an article in the Observer today.

Since 2002, [Albertson] has received more than $25,000 in campaign contributions from N.C. poultry executives and from the political action committee that represents them. He got $3,750 of that money Feb. 26, about two weeks after the first Observer stories were published.

More than $6,000 came from the N.C. Poultry Federation, the industry's state PAC. That's more than the group gave to any other lawmaker. Much of Albertson's remaining poultry money came from executives with N.C.-based Prestage Farms and House of Raeford Farms.

Not one to be easily embarrassed, evidently, Albertson even told the Observer, "I've been a little disappointed at times they haven't given me more."

There's a public servant to be proud of!

He's blind to more than just these appearances of pay-to-play. He says he hasn't heard any complaints about the poultry industry from his constituents. Doesn't hear, doesn't see, doesn't do.

We'll Miss Richard Moore

For eight years he's been NC's State Treasurer, and he's done a very good job, particularly with the state's pension fund. According to the N&O, "North Carolina has been rated among the top three state pension systems since 2003 in various national rankings." While the pension fund did lose money this year in the Wall Street melt-down (some 12 percent), the losses were much less than the 24 percent plunge of the S&P 500 ... primarily because Moore has been a very cautious and conservative manager of our money.

Then came his run for governor in the Democratic primary against Bev Perdue, which was pretty much a disaster from several perspectives.

Now Moore says he has lost all interest in any other elective office, which is unfortunate, because he's one of North Carolina's best public servants. We'll give him 2009 to reconsider and will hope to see him saddling up in 2010.

Back

Back from a road trip to deepest Virginia, where we were days without access to newspapers, InnerTubes, or even CNN ... so we have a lot of catching up to do, but at least we stored up a lot of available fuel in the form of cream cheese.

Bear with us as we dig in and make discoveries.