Federalist No 1

The above image is a Wordle [website] of the text of Federalist No 1, written by Alexander Hamilton under the pseudonym Publius. The text is below for you to consider as President Obama, Progressives and other anti-Federalists work together to destroy the US Constitution that our Founding Fathers worked so hard to create. To the People of the State of New York: AFTER an unequivocal experience of the inefficiency of the subsisting federal...

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Job Fair Poorly Attended in Franklin; Congressman Heath Shuler Wonders Why

There was recently a Jobs Fair held in Franklin, NC that was poorly attended despite a high unemployment rate. I've heard that Congressman Shuler wonders why so few attended. I went to the Unemployment Office today to see how many people were there. The above photo shows a full parking lot. I sat across the road for an hour and a half this morning, and traffic was brisk, and the parking lot stayed nearly full the entire time as people cycled...

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Beaker: An Ode to Joy

Poor Beaker. Can't he just be happy without everything going so spectacularly wrong? Previously Beaker's Ballad ...

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AMBER ALERT: Child Abduction

THIS IS A NORTH CAROLINA AMBER ALERT FOR A CHILD ABDUCTION  ADDED PICTURES  RALEIGH 2:11 PM -- The Monroe Police Department is searching for a missing child: Jaleen Xamir Howard. Jaleen Xamir Howard is a 4-month-old Black male, approximately 2 feet 0 inches tall, weighing 15 pounds. He has black hair, and brown eyes. Jaleen was last seen only wearing a diaper Allegedly, there is 1 abductor: Lonnie Cecil Buchanan, JR. Lonnie...

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Tropical Update for July 26th

So far, things look pretty calm in the Atlantic Basin and people are still making noise about the potential for a tropical cyclone near Puerto Rico. I don't think it will do anything other than make a lot of rain. Here is the most recent Graphical Outlook for the Atlantic basin from the National Hurricane Center... It looks like nothing doing for now in the Atlantic Basin.... Weekly Hurricane Outlook with Mark Suddoth [July...

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Discarded Cicada Skin

Cross-posted from WNC Citizens Blog... The above photo is of a discarded Cicada skin I noticed on the railing of my stairs this Saturday morning. It's that time of year, or if you're a Brood XIX Cicada, that time of your 13 year life cycle when you must crawl out of the ground, molt, eat, sing, mate, lay eggs, then die. Only this one didn't hit the snooze button and wait until 2011, when the rest of his/her brood will be emerging.  I...

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Cat Adopts Baby Bunny

Shamelessly Stolen from Cheeseburger ...

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Teachable Moment: John Kerry Slips Yacht in Low Tax Haven Lesson for Progressives: High Taxes Chases Money Away

The object lesson here is that higher state taxes forces people to move and hold assets and businesses out of state, even out of the country. Sen. John Kerry, who has repeatedly voted to raise taxes while in Congress, dodged a whopping six-figure state tax bill on his new multimillion-dollar yacht by mooring her in Newport, R.I. Isabel - Kerry’s luxe, 76-foot New Zealand-built Friendship sloop with an Edwardian-style, glossy varnished teak interior,...

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SpaceVidCat #3.24: Why we should colonize the moon with Dennis Wingo

Spacevidcast is my favorite place to go to find out what is going on in manned exploration of space, and a required place to visit when there is a manned mission in the near future. Here is the latest live show put out earlier this week by Ben and Cariann Higginbotham: From the show notes... "Moonrush" author Dennis Wingo joins us from a converted McDonalds where he is converting old Lunar Reconnaissance to digital files for our latest...

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Tractor Trailer Fire on Cowee Mountain

Here is photo of a tractor-trailer fire on US Highway 441 North in Macon County near the bottom of Cowee Mountain just above the runaway truck ramp. Franklin Fire-Rescue and Mountain Valley Fire-Rescue responded to the scene along with numerous Sheriff's Deputies and the NC State Highway Patrol to control traffic. The Google Map shows the location. It appears that no one was hurt. WLOS-TV was already on the scene when I drove by, so they must...

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Franklin Board of Aldermen July 19, 2010 Meeting Full Video

Here is the full meeting of the Franklin Board of Aldermen that took place on Monday, July 19, 2010. And, if you are on dialup and can't watch the video, here is the audio of the meeting: The file is 47.53 MB in size. ...

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Sky at Night Magazine Vodcast Episode 23

This is a podcast from The Sky at Night magazine for August 2010. For this month's episode of the vodcast we thought it'd be fun to show you how we produce the monthly reviews section of Sky at Night Magazine. A surprising amount of work goes on behind the scenes between the telescopes being tested under the night sky and the review you see printed in the magazine pages. ...

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More questions on the origins of Facebook

I'm posting this mainly because Facebook seems to have blocked attempts for me to post a link to an article that might be construed as detrimental to Mark Zuckerberg on Facebook, so I'm using my blog post as a manual re-direct to get around the Facebook block. Here is a portion of the article: The case is the latest challenge to the origins of Facebook, which is worth $24.6 billion, according to SharesPost.com, a marketplace for closely held...

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And They Call Tea Partiers Violent?

In Raleigh, North Carolina, about a 1,000 Lefties gathered to protest a busing system change the Wake County School Board has enacted that they claim would result in schools being resegregated by organizing schools by neighborhood instead of by race. 19 of them, including the head of the North Carolina NAACP were arrested. Most of the arrests occurred when a group violently disrupted the meeting by gathering around the podium, chanting and...

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Apollo 11

Will we ever return to the Moon? Or is this as far as man will ever go? Will this footprint outlive us? Once, I had hoped that we would return, and men would walk on the surface of the Moon. Now, I am almost certain that we will not.  ...

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Tropical Update for July 20, 2010

So far, things look pretty calm in the Atlantic Basin and people are still making noise about the potential for a tropical cyclone near Puerto Rico. I don't think it will do anything other than make a lot of rain. Here is the most recent Graphical Outlook for the Atlantic basin from the National Hurricane Center... Here is what the National Hurricane Center has to say about 97L: 1. A VIGOROUS TROPICAL WAVE LOCATED OVER...

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Macon County Commissioners Meeting Video July 12, 2010

This is the full video of the Macon County Commissioners meeting that took place on Monday, July 12, 2010. Commissioner Jim Davis spoke about the destruction of his barn by fire caused by oil soaked rags left in a bucket. He praised the volunteer firefighters of the several volunteer fire departments, the EMTs of the Macon County EMS and the officers of the Franklin Police Department that responded to the fire for their professionalism. Public...

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