Posts Tagged ‘south carolina’

An armed society is a polite society

Thursday, May 14th, 2009

Kellie forwarded me this news story and I thought I should pass it on: Restaurant Customer Shot After Complaining.

A South Carolina restaurant employee has been arrested and accused of shooting a customer who complained about the service.

[…]

Deputies said [the employee] worked at a Waffle House restaurant in Manning and was involved in a fight about 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

So what’s the moral of this story?

An armed society is a polite society?

Hmm.  That doesn’t quite seem to fit.

Don’t complain about the service at a Waffle House?

Nope.  Still needs work.

Never, ever go to a Waffle House.

Perfect!

Rain on the way

Wednesday, April 29th, 2009

As North Myrtle Beach continues to clean up after the fire, I thought I’d pull an NMB picture from the archives.  Here’s North Myrtle Beach about to get some rain in late summer, 2004.

North Myrtle Beach, Summer 2004 - 1024x768.  Click to enlarge.

North Myrtle Beach, Summer 2004 - 1024x768. Click to enlarge.

Crystal Gayle on toast!

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

A Spartanburg woman has made a piece of cheese toast that bears an uncanny resemblance to country music legend Crystal Gayle.

The likeness is amazing!

The likeness is amazing!

As the woman noted…

“I know there’s a lot of people who believe there’s some […] reason for it being there,” said Lowe, who lives on Lake Bowen. “I just don’t know, but I could never eat it.”

Yes, country music is rather popular here in South Carolina.  What other reason would there be for country music legends to start appearing on toast?

Okay, okay … so the woman actually thought the toast looked like some religious character.  But you can’t tell me that isn’t Crystal Gayle immortalized in cheese!

Tax day!

Wednesday, April 15th, 2009

Today’s the day citizens are supposed to mail off their tax forms. And in honor of that day, here are some interesting links:

Kevin Drum has a in interesting post about who’s really getting “soaked” by our tax structure: “How to think about taxes” Hint: It’s probably not who you think.

Closer to home, we have lots of articles about “tax protesters” coming out of the woodwork to protest that … the federal government requires money to operate!

[Some coverage in The State]

“What works in America is always and has always been freedom,” DeMint said. “The only way we’re going to stop our…spending is to do these (rallies) all over the country as long as it takes to take back our government.”

Or, we could have simply not rushed into Iraq. But I digress… How does DeMint think we should control spending?

DeMint urged support for proposals such as school-choice and private health care over reforms that give government greater control.

… by giving tax money away to unaccountable private schools and pouring money into the impenetrable bureaucratic hell of private insurance companies, of course! That’s true freedom! Makes about as much sense as anything else tax protesters say, I suppose.

The “FairTax” folks are also getting in on the act:

Advocates of the FairTax also will rally at the Township Auditorium this evening. The FairTax would replace federal income taxes with a 30 percent (23 percent when included in the price) sales tax on services and sales of new goods.

Why this gets any traction in South Carolina (aside from the crazy truck guys) is beyond me. We already tried swapping out property taxes for increased sales taxes in this state. Now we have higher sales taxes and the state budget is still screwed.

Last but not least, here’s Indigo Journal’s open thread on the tax protests – with a few pictures:   [Tax protesters open thread]

Happy tax day!

Conservative performance art

Tuesday, April 14th, 2009

There are some folks out there who wonder how we in South Carolina managed to elect officials that want to play crazy, stupid games with the federal stimulus package, the state budget, and our underfunded state services.

Let me introduce you to conservatism,  South Carolina style:

Conservative performance art, right side

Conservative performance art, right side. Click to enlarge.

What it says:

DEMS DRIVE BUY MEDIA

LARGEST TERRORIST

GROUP IN AMERICA

OBAMA INSANE – THEIR

LEADER – CHILDREN ARE

A PUNISHMENT – ABORT

OUR GOVERNMENT IS A DEN

OF SELFSERVING LIARS

THIEVES – SELLING OUT

HARD WORKING TAX

PAYERS TO ENRICH THEM

SELVES & FRIENDS

And on the other side …

Cnservative performance art, left side.  Click to enlarge

Cnservative performance art, left side. Click to enlarge

It says:

OUT WITH THE OLD CROOKS

IN WITH THE NEW CROOKS

CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE

IN BILLION GIVEN TO

CONGRESS FROM GROUPS

THAT GOT BAIL OUT MONEY

And there you have it!  South Carolina’s conservative values – as articulated by the “crazy truck guy”.

With help like this …

Wednesday, February 18th, 2009

There’s an odd headline in The State today:
Bill would help SC schools amid budget cuts
Sounds good, right?  Then you read the article.

South Carolina lawmakers gave key approval Wednesday to a bill allowing school districts to increase class sizes and furlough teachers to absorb budget cuts

That’s “help”?  If cramming more and more students into a classroom and cutting teacher pay (which really isn’t that great to begin with) is meant to help our schools, I shudder to think what a bill hurting our schools would look like.

An outrage!

Thursday, February 12th, 2009

Here’s a letter to the editor from a Pee Dee media outlet:

Now, I’m really sorry to say this, but the Koran really needs to be taught in our Pee Dee schools.

Our grades are starting to be lower and lower every grading period, especially in Hemingway, where three-quarters of the student body are failing.

So with Allah’s help, our students’ grades will rocket up to A’s and B’s.

Outrageous, right?  We should never allow this sort of thing to be crammed down our children’s throats in the public schools.  Our public schools are meant to educate kids, not indoctrinate them.

Okay, I admit it – I changed the text of the letter above just a little.  But how is the outrageous letter above any different from the actual letter that was published – the one that said:

Now, I’m really sorry to say this, but the Bible really needs to be taught in our Pee Dee schools.

Our grades are starting to be lower and lower every grading period, especially in Hemingway, where three-quarters of the student body are failing.

So with God’s help, our students’ grades will rocket up to A’s and B’s.

Anyone?

Where did THIS come from?

Wednesday, February 4th, 2009

So, where did this come from?

Snow!  AGAIN!

Snow! AGAIN!

It’s the second snowfall here in my part of South Carolina this year.  (It’s also the second snowfall we’ve had in the last five years.)

This time, though, the college (and most local schools and businesses) didn’t issue a delay or cancellation.  That was unfortunate, since driving conditions during this snowfall were much worse than during the last one.

Let’s just say I’m thankful my car’s got traction and stability control …

Cate’s snow day

Tuesday, January 20th, 2009

It doesn’t snow very much down in these parts of South Carolina.  There’s so little snow here that today was Cate’s first time to see snow anywhere other than on the television.

It’s good that the college was closed, since that meant that we could stay howm today and allow Cate to enjoy the snow with us.

Cate's first snow day:  January 20, 2009.  Cate has noticed that she can leave footprints, so she's started stomping around the front yard.

Cate's first snow day: January 20, 2009. Cate has noticed that she can leave footprints, so she's started stomping around the front yard.

Cate enjoyed the snow quite a bit.  She was so wild abut the snow that we ended up taking her outside about four different times over the course of the day.  Cate has also learned the basics of the snowball fight – how to make snowballs, and how to throw them at things.  At the moment, she prefers large, stationary targets to moving ones.

Targets like Patty's car!

Targets like Patty's car!

I wonder if there will be any snow left for Cate to play in tomorrow afternoon.

State of the State

Thursday, January 15th, 2009

Governor Sanford had his “State of the State” address last night.  While I didn’t get a chance to watch it live, The State has a transcript up for us to9 read and analyze.

A common theme among conservatives is that government is wasteful.  While that’s true in a sense, it isn’t helpful.  Alternative systems for providing services that the government does are also wasteful – perhaps even more so than the comparable government system. (Consider the cost of our health care system compared to most other industrialized nations with various forms of “government” health care…)  Governor Sanford suggests that …

[…] every one of us tied to government can follow the lead of working South Carolinians in being creative in finding ways to do more with less. Whether in Dillon or Grey Court or Yemassee, doing more with less is what families across our state are indeed doing everyday – and those of us who work in government should find ways to honor these daily decisions being made by the people who pay for government.

It’s as if he doesn’t recognize that most of us state workers have been asked to do “more with less” for quite some time now.  As my three loyal readers know, I’ve worked as an instructor at one of our technical schools for nearly a decade.  I’ve watched enrollment increase as state funding stagnates.  Faculty workloads have increased because of all these new students, while at the same time money for salary increases to merely keep up with inflation and money for needed upgrades and maintenance to classrooms and labs has disappeared.

On a personal note, when I decided to introduce a digital blackboard to my classes – to make note-taking and interactive problem solving easier for my students – the money for the device came out of my own salary.  “Doing more with less”, indeed.

How about the governor and legislature figuring out how to make sure state services are adequately funded during times of economic stress.  In other words, a way to keep state services operational when these services are needed most.  Helpful hint:  The solution  probably doesn’t involve this:

The second leg of what we have proposed to stimulate the economy is a flat tax of 3.65 percent in one’s individual income tax return.

[…]

To pay for this part of the tax cut, we would raise our lowest in the nation cigarette tax from seven cents to 37 cents.

Jacking up the cigarette tax and using the money to prop up another tax cut strikes me as counterproductive at best.  Increases in the cigarette tax should be used for funding to help keep people off of cigarettes in the first place.  Subsidizing cigarette taxes for income tax is otherwise simply a way of taxing the poor, who are more likely to smoke and less likely to be able to quit.*** And aside from the regressive nature of this kind of tax, haven’t we already seen the dangers of substituting a stable tax for an unstable one?

*** The linked article is from the UK, but it likely holds up here, too.