Last week, Justin noted a Froma Harrop Projo column where she approvingly cited an organization who believes that the United States should actively work towards cutting its population in half…
Negative Population Growth (www.npg.org) thinks that the optimal number for sustaining a decent quality of life in the United States is 150 million. That is half of what we now have, but in case you think that it’s a crazy low figure, consider that the U.S. population was 150 million as recently as the 1950s, which many regard as a golden age of American contentment.Meanwhile, across the ocean, according to the Australian newspaper The Age, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad would like to increase his country’s population to 120 million, believing that more people means more power for his government…
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has called for a baby boom to boost the country’s population to 120 million and enable it to threaten the West, as he boasted the country’s nuclear capacity had increased “tenfold”.I wonder how the central population planners of the West plan to address the central population planners in other parts of the world who intend to use increased population as a means of conquest. [Open full post]
Mr. Ahmadinejad told MPs he wanted to scrap birth control policies that discourage Iranian couples from having more than two children. Women should work less and devote more time to their “main mission” of raising children, he said.
His comments were an attack on policies sanctioned by senior Islamic clerics aimed at limiting Iran’s population of about 70 million. The Government backs birth control measures including female sterilisation, vasectomies and mandatory family planning classes for newlyweds. Iran also has a state-owned condom factory.
“Westerners have got problems,” Mr Ahmadinejad said. “Because their population growth is negative, they are worried and fear that if our population increases, we will triumph over them.”
He said he wanted to bring in legislation reducing women’s working hours based on how many children they had. Women could work part time on full-time salaries, he said.
The Coventry Courier tells the story of a woman laid to rest in West Greenwich in 1889, later mistakenly identified as a vampire…
The last and perhaps most widely known case of alleged vampirism in Rhode Island history is that of Mercy Lena Brown, buried at the Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Exeter….Fortunately for the sake of accuracy, there are reports that the deceased has returned to correct the record…
On Jan. 17, 1892 Mercy, like so many others throughout early New England history, succumbed to consumption, or pulmonary tuberculosis- a devastating and highly contagious disease widely misunderstood by rural townspeople at that time….
Two years prior on May 31, 1889 a young West Greenwich woman named Nellie L. Vaughn also died at the young age of 19, a victim of pneumonia.
Unlike Mercy, however, stories casting Nellie as a vampire did not surface until 78 years after her death.
In 1967 a Coventry High School teacher told students the tale of a young woman who, after her death in the late 1800s at the age of 19, was accused of being a vampire. The teacher divulged little more information other than to say the woman was buried in an old cemetery off Route 102.
Accepting the story as an invitation, the youths set off to find her.
The Chestnut Hill Baptist Church is located off Route 102 in Exeter. And while their teacher was undoubtedly speaking of the cemetery behind that church, of Mercy Brown’s resting place, the teens found another old cemetery off 102.
It was a cemetery that sits oddly out of place, guarded by a different white church and an aging stone wall.
Stepping within that wall and onto those sacred grounds they found something else. It was a gravestone that read, “Nellie L. Vaughn; Daughter of George B. and Ellen; Died in her 19th year, May 1889.” And at the bottom of her headstone was inscribed, “I am waiting and watching for you.”
The youths had found their vampire.
In 1993 a Coventry woman and her husband doing gravestone rubbings in the historical cemetery there, #WG002, heard a woman’s voice repeating, “I am perfectly pleasant. I am perfectly pleasant.”[Open full post]
The husband said he left the cemetery, never to return, with unexplainable scratches on his face.
His wife, however, did go back several months later where she happened to encounter a young, dark-haired woman who claimed to be a member of a local historical society. When their conversation shifted to discussion of Nellie Vaughn, the young woman became agitated and started repeating, “Nellie is not a vampire.”
Shaken, the Coventry woman turned to leave and when she looked back to ensure the disturbed woman was not following her, she found the cemetery empty.
(With the help of some creative editing) here is the true story from the July 3, 2004 edition of the Block Island Times of the most recent sighting of a mythical sea creature that may live in the briny deep off of Block Island sound…
URI Oceanographer: “It was a monster”[Open full post]
On Thursday, June 24, Callum Crawford and Rob Fell braved the chilly ocean near Grace’s Cove on an early-morning spearfishing expedition to secure a few striped bass for the dinner table….
They actually saw it from the shore: a blur of whiteness underneath the waves just beyond the break. The two waded back into the surf and, to their astonishment, found the coiled skeletal remains of an indeterminate undersea creature.
When unrolled, the remaining spinal column and skull reached a length of 18 feet….
In 1996, almost eight years ago to the day, local commercial fishermen Gary Hall and Jay Pinney pulled a similar looking and smelling thing to the surface. It became known as the Block Ness Monster and, after much fanfare, was lost to history in a mysterious carcass-napping….
Jay Pinney devoted much time and effort in determining the origin of the original Block Ness Monster, and was never satisfied with its identification as a basking shark. Pinney saw photographs of dead basking sharks that, to his eye, just didn’t look like what he and Hall netted that day. “None of them had a beak that long or flat,” he said. “Everyone had an opinion and no one was wrong”….
A team of scientists arrived on the 11:45 a.m. ferry Friday, June 25, and made for the 18-foot creature that by this time had been laid out on the stretch of beach between the ferry dock and the Old Harbor Bike Shop.
The group was led by oceanographers Jeremy Collie, Ph.D., and William Macy III, Ph.D….
But as of press time, we don’t know with certainty what Crawford and Fell found in Graces Cove last Thursday.
Prof. Collie said on Tuesday that “If you imagine the fish intact, it was a very large fish.” This echoes what he said when initially surveying the remains on Friday: “There was much more of this fish — it was a monster. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that.”
One warning to the trick-or-treaters of South County tonight.
Recorded in the Bigfoot Field Researchers’ Organization database has been a Class-A sighting from Charlestown of the creature known as Bigfoot…
It had been raining earlier with thunder and lightning mixed in. Now it was just raining. We were rounding a corner on one of the roads that paralleled the Indian Cedar Swamp and as we started downward, we noticed the road was obstructed by a large blown down oak tree, the tree had green leaves (this makes me think it was summer or the early fall) on it so it had recently come down, we guessed maybe in the storm earlier(possibly lightning).[Open full post]
The road was very narrow and the brush along the side of the road made it difficult to back the car around to turn around. The rain was falling but not heavy, the wipers were on, the headlights on the car were on as well.
As my mother turned the front end of the car the lights cast on the left side of the road where the tree had been broken off from its stump. We were maybe 1 1/2 car lengths from the stump. Beside the tall fractured stump stood what looked like a large white(yellow white) ape. It was maybe 6 to 7 feet tall, its hair was long, face flat, long massive arms, its head appeared to be without any neck, its chest was broad.
My mother and I froze momentarily (5 seconds, maybe 10) and the figure remained still, staring at us…
I’m burnt out on this year’s elections, so it was by pure chance that I happened upon the tail end of the last debate between Senator Chafee and Sheldon Whitehouse last night. It’s really become an election by and for syllogistic simpletons, hasn’t it? Like most other Democrats, Whitehouse is running against BUSH. Like many Republicans, Chafee is running away from BUSH. That is really what their messages have become. Plus, both are bluebloods and to hear each tell it, the other is either corrupt and wishy-washy or inept and wishy-washy. You decide who is speaking about whom. I can’t tell the difference anymore. Truth be told, I never could. What a choice…
But there is a difference between them, I suppose.
You see, if I were to take off my ideological lense and go all pragmatic on your a**es, I’d have to say that the “average Rhode Island voter” (whover she may be) would probably benefit more by sending Senator Chafee back to Washington. Tenured incumbents really do deliver for their constituents, after all. As much as fiscal conservative’s hate to admit it, one persons “pork” is another’s “special project” and multi-term incumbents are the most effective purveyors of pork. And most of their constituents won’t take them to task for directing millions of dollars their way. In fact, and unfortunately, that’s exactly what many folks think a politician’s job is: to get other people’s money to help improve our backyard.
Another related argument, and one made by Senator Chafee, is that having at least one Republican in our otherwise Democrat-dominated national political delegation is smart politics. That way, Rhode Island will always have at least one elected official who will be in the party in power in Washington, D.C. Hard to argue with the technical logic, though what benefit can be accrued is directly related to the ability of said politician to “deliver” the goods when his party is in power.
Based largely upon the aforementioned pragmatic reasons, I’ve narrowed my decision down to “No-voting” in the Senate race or voting for Senator Chafee. But is pragmatism enough? Aren’t there any ideologically conservative justifications that can be summoned to legitmize supporting either Chafee or Whitehouse?
I’ve come to believe that, regardless of how this election turns out, any hope held by RI conservatives that we can somehow move the ideological ball toward us by electing or not electing either of these two candidates is unfounded. I believe that if Senator Chafee were to emerge victorious, he would be so politically tempered that it will be well-nigh impossible for anyone to beat him, whether in a primary or general election. That is bad news for conservatives.
By the same token, I believe that should Sheldon Whitehouse take the seat, the power of incumbency would serve him well and Rhode Islanders would get used to the idea of having an all Democrat delegation. Then there would be no turning back. Now, I suppose Mayor Laffey or even Governor Carcieri might have a shot in beating Whitehouse 6 years on, so maybe I’m being overly-pessimistic, but given the “navy blue” of the RI electorate (H/T: Maureen Moakley on the last Lively Experiment), I think my pessimism is justified.
Thus, electing either Chafee or Whitehouse will do nothing to help the conservative cause in RI in either the short or long term. Basically, we’re screwed on this front, kids, and will be better served to look elsewhere for any conservative movement opportunities.
But back to the reality of the senate race. Like it or not, conservatives simply can’t apply the standard set of ideological benchmarks to this race. If we’re going to vote, we need to put ideology aside and vote based on other factors. For me, right now, I still don’t know whether I’m going to swallow hard and vote for a liberal blueblood Republican or “check out” of the process and let the rest of the electorate decide who their (my) Senator is going to be. It will come down to me standing in the booth looking at that ballot and which decision will allow me to live with my conscience.
In today’s edition, the Projo runs its dueling articles on Patrick Lynch and Bill Harsch, this year’s candidates for Rhode Island Attorney General. Though other issues are discussed, each aricle devotes an ample amount of space to the Station fire and the Derderian trial.
On its face, Attorney General Lynch’s description of the events leading to guilty pleas by the Derderains continues to be different from the version given by Judge Francis Darigan in his final sentencing statement. Here is Attorney General Lynch’s description, current as of today, of how the final deal came about…
Lynch said that about 95 percent of the time, defense lawyers and prosecutors discuss and agree on terms and turn to a judge to approve the deal. But when that doesn’t work out, there are other options. He said in some cases when the prosecution and defense can’t agree, the judge can tell the defendant, if you plea to every count, I’ll give you the following and the state can enter their objection. He said, That’s what happened here.Judge Darigan described a different process in his sentencing statement, which is as about an official a version as is possible…
This Court was well aware that all parties desired to conclude these cases without a trial. As the structure of theses (sic) cases and the issues for the trial became clearer and more crystallized, the Court began to share this opinion.What exactly did the “parties” — which in legal terms usually refers to both sides prosecution and defense — ask the court for, if it wasn’t part of the AG’s office agreeing to deal? (Also, it is interesting to note that both Judge Darigan and AG Lynch make a point to emphasize that the state reserved a right to object to the final outcome).
As the date for the trial approached, the Defendants clearly indicated to the Court and the Attorney General’s Office that they wished to change their pleas.
It was at this time that the parties asked the Court if it would accept a change in the pleas and impose sentences to which the State, if it wished, could object.
I can come up with three ways to reconcile the disparate versions…
- When Judge Darigan talks about the “parties” asking for the Court to accept a change in pleas, he is referring to some technical legal procedure that is different from what the plain English might indicate. (But then what was the state formally asking for?)
- Judge Darigan was horribly imprecise with his description of events, e.g. he said “parties” when he really meant “Defendants”. (But then why tell us that the state reserved its right to object in the same sentence?)
- Patrick Lynch is telling a different version of events from what Judge Darigan experienced.
Dorinne Albright is running for State Representative in Rhode Island’s 14th District (Cranston), which is currently represented by Senate Representative Charlene Lima. Anchor Rising recently had the opportunity to interview Ms. Albright on the why she is running and what she thinks of her opponent’s recent performance in office…
Anchor Rising: What’s motivating your run for office?
Dorinne Albright: I think that everyone needs a choice when they go to the polls. Charlene Lima ran unopposed last time. She’s run unopposed a few times in the past. It’s not a real election unless people have a choice. Whether I win or lose, at least I’m on there for the people that don’t want to vote for her.
AR: What issues are most important to you?
DA: My biggest concern is taxes. I am a realtor and I see it in my business every day. People are losing their homes because they can’t afford the taxes. Our legislators are wasting a lot of our money. They voted to unionize the daycare providers, which is basically making them state employees — let’s pay for their benefits; let’s give them everything they want!
Daycare providers are independent contractors. As a realtor, I am an independent contractor. I’m not going to tell anyone they need need to pay for my health insurance and guarantee how much money I make. It was a risk I took when I decided to go into business for myself. The daycare workers need to run their businesses well and not rely on the taxpayers to support them.
AR: Your opponent, Charlene Lima, has been the House of Representative point-person on eminent domain reform. Any thoughts on this issue?
DA: Jim Davey had also proposed an eminent domain bill?
AR: …his was much better…
DA: …Yes! But hers was the one that started getting some action, because she is one of the Speaker’s friends. As I understand it, it was her refusal to compromise on the bill that prevented its passage.
The realtors I know were really unhappy with what happened. They were pleased she was going to support it and that she was putting this forward to prevent people from losing their homes to private businesses. But when it came time to make compromises to get the bill to pass, it was her pride, her saying it’s my way or nothing, that stopped action on the bill. So we got nothing. Sometimes you have to make compromises to get things done.
AR: Is there anything else you think people should know about your opponent?
DA: I think she has been a little duplicitous with a casino vote. She was quoted in the Journal as saying that Harrah’s isn’t going to be able to come in to do anything they want, because they would just get somebody else to do it instead. But after saying that, she turned around and voted against competitive bidding and she voted against the bill that would have prevented her as a legislator from working there and personally gaining from a casino. That’s wrong.
I think it was 44-25 when they took the vote on the personal gain bill. We have very few people at the State House who are willing to stand up and say I want to do best for Rhode Islanders, and not myself. We need to start getting the people who are just looking out for themselves out of office.
AR: Last question. Running as a Republican isn’t the easiest path to take into politics in Rhode Island. Why run as a Republican, and what does being a Republican mean to you?
DA: The biggest thing to me about being a Republican is the fiscal responsibility. We need to stop taking money out of taxpayers pockets, taking money away from people that are working hard to earn it and trying to get by, and saying let’s give it to all these other programs and things we can’t afford to be supporting. It’s great to want to help people, but when you are hurting some people to help others, there comes a point where you just have to stop. We’re driving businesses out of the state because we’ve got people involved with government saying they don’t want anyone to be running a successful business and making money. But it’s businesses that make money that provide jobs, that provide benefits to their employees and that build up our economy. We need to be working with them, not against them!
Ah, well. I understand the choices that are unavoidably part of crafting a short news segment, but I can’t say I’m thrilled with the soundbyte that BSR88.1 reporter Chris Gang chose from my 20 minute conversation with him for his piece on the casino question on Off the Beat. The argument I tried to present was as follows.
As usual, in this state, one gets the feeling that the interested parties haven’t come forward with an honest proposition, but rather that we’re merely seeing the public face painted on rank self interest. Throw in all of the other “only in Rhode Island” details, such as slippage and contentious debates about how long politicians have to wait before they can collect handouts, and the whole deal is just suspicious.
But the bottom line, even were everything completely ethical, is that Rhode Island is too small. This will become a central — perhaps defining — characteristic of the state.
To explain: I grew up in New Jersey, and I never understood the (sort of) primetime sitcom jokes about how urban and polluted the Garden State was until my father explained that most people judge New Jersey not by its suburbs and family beaches, but by the drive from the airport to New York City or to Atlantic City. Similarly, throw a large casino into the heart of Rhode Island, and the qualities that make this state genuinely attractive will recede.
The most recent pro-casino commercial that I’ve seen tacitly confirms this by emphasizing how significant supplying the casino can become to the Rhode Island economy. Personally, I don’t want a casino to become significant to Rhode Island. If it’s another thing to do (like Hai Lai or Lincoln park), fine, but as a Rhode Islander, I don’t want it to become the thing to do.
Now, the most relevant argument from casino proponents is that a major casino would act as a draw — that visitors will explore the state, as it were. But who will visit this sort of destination? If it’s night-trippers, as everybody I know has been every time they’ve gone to Foxwoods, then they’re not interested in exploring the area. For example, if they haven’t dined in their own area, they’ll do so at the casino. If it’s people seeking a casino vacation, then the resort casino is designed to keep them in the hotel gambling. Beyond gambling, food is there; shopping is there; shows are there.
The only people likely to leave the casino to explore Rhode Island’s other attractions are those who’ve come with the intention of doing so. And even if the casino’s lures to keep them in the building fail and they go out into the state, at the very least it will be true that some other hotel — a hotel located with the primary goal of providing access to Rhode Island — will have lost that business.
The United States Supreme Court has ruled, at least temporarily, that states can require voters to show a photo-ID before proceeding to vote. As the Washington Post reported on October 21…
The Supreme Court ruled yesterday that Arizona may enforce a new state law requiring voters to show a photo identification card at the polls on Election Day this year….In its unanimous five-page ruling, the court did not decide whether the Arizona law was constitutional. Rather, it overturned a federal appeals court in San Francisco that would have blocked enforcement of the law until the opponents’ suit could be decided.Not everybody is happy with the Supreme Court’s decision…
Arizona, which borders Mexico and has seen a surge in migration in recent years, is one of several states that have recently enacted a photo-ID requirement in response to reports that illegal immigrants and other ineligible voters have been casting ballots.
Opponents say that the ID requirement imposes an extra burden on minorities, the poor and the elderly, who are less likely than other citizens to have a driver’s license, the most common form of state-issued photo ID. Opponents say that because states charge fees for photo IDs, requiring one to vote is tantamount to an unconstitutional poll tax.Fortunately, there is a solution to the dilemma of using photo-IDs to discourage fraudulent voting that should be acceptable to reasonable people — the solution proposed by Rhode Island Secretary of State candidate Sue Stenhouse.
Ms. Stenhouse proposes issuing every voter a photo-ID at the time he or she registers to vote, pointing out that many municipalities already issue photo-ID library cards. She believes that it wouldn’t be difficult to apply the same technology to the voter registration process. If elected Secretary of State, Ms. Stenhouse would first test a voter photo-ID program in one community, then take it statewide…
The City of Warwick would serve as a test pilot site for the use of voters’ credential cards. Currently, Warwick provides photo identification cards with barcodes for library patrons. Stenhouse is proposing that a similar card be issued to all qualified voters in Warwick to be used in the general election in 2010. Stenhouse would explore ways to expand upon voting standards mandated in the federal Help America Vote Act (HAVA) that have begun to be implemented in the Secretary of State’s Office. Legislation will be proposed in the 2007 General Assembly session establishing Warwick as a pilot site, and federal funds allocated through HAVA will be sought to pay for the equipment to be used.Unless progressives want to start making the argument that the process of voter registration itself constitutes an undue burden, the Stenhouse solution should satisfy the concerns of all sides of the voter-ID debate.
Occasionally, even in politics, an idea just makes sense. [Open full post]
A study commissioned by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research and carried out by Global Insight Inc. analyzed the cost of doing business in Massachusetts in nine different commercial sectors. The study is of interest to Rhode Islanders for two reasons: 1) Rhode Island was one of six states used for the detailed breakdown of the cost-of-doing-business for a comparison to Massachusetts and 2) the study’s conclusion is different from the usual “Rhode Island is nearly worst in everything” you probably have grown accustomed to seeing when discussing the business climate in RI.
Since the study was focused on Massachusetts, basic results were presented in terms of how much more or less profitable a Massachusetts company would be be if it were located in another state. In two sectors, Rhode Island based businesses would do significantly worse than comparable businesses in Massachusetts…
- A plastics manufacturing company in Rhode Island would be 58.8% less profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A precision metal manufacturing company in Rhode Island would be 59.6% less profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A biotechnology manufacturing company in Rhode Island would be 16.8% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A financial services company in Rhode Island would be 31.1% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- An aerospace/defense company in Rhode Island would be 50.0% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A software company in Rhode Island would be 26.4% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A semiconductor equipment company in Rhode Island would be 18.4% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A medical device company in Rhode Island would be 12.1% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
- A search and navigation instruments company in Rhode Island would be 46.5% more profitable than a comparable company in Massachusetts.
The cost of energy was one factor among the 10 making costs in Massachusetts higher than elsewhere, and little can be done about that in the short term. But a number of the other nine are subject to reduction through policy changes, the report suggests.Mr. Iaia’s analysis suggests that Rhode Island’s education system may be so underperforming that it more-than-cancels out any economic advantages Rhode Island has over Massachusetts.
They include unemployment insurance, higher here than in four other states; municipal property taxes, where in biotech and finance sectors they were lower in three states; and corporate income taxes, where Massachusetts was the highest of all….
Stergios said Massachusetts businesses’ high costs can be controlled. An efficient procedure for siting a liquefied natural gas facility would even lower energy prices in the long run, he said….
Dave Iaia, senior principal at Global Insight Inc. and author of the study, said executives gave two reasons for staying in Massachusetts: the pool of skilled and educated workers, and simple inertia.
“It’s one ace in the hole, this pool of workers,” Iaia said. “If we start driving them away, that’s going to be a problem.”
Two quick cautions about the results…
- One consistent advantage Rhode Island had over Massachusetts in the study was cheaper property costs/rents. If Rhode Island did become attractive to businesses, that gap would almost certainly close.
- Although RI has an advantage of MA in many industry sectors, it was frequenty a smaller advantage than the two states outside of the Northeast (North Carolina and Texas) that were analyzed.
