News & Views
It's time for colleges and universities to enter the Information Age, making data on student progress and performance easily available to parents and students. Information on educational value should be a prerequisite to asking families for a hefty tuition. It's clear not everyone is getting a higher education in college. In a report released in September, U.S. Education Secretary Margaret Spellings' Commission on the Future of Higher Education called for creating a national higher-education database that would help families compare colleges by showing which are the most effective in helping students earn a degree.
Considering the cost of tution, it seems the least they could do.
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Lawyer hired to fight Choctaws
The possibility of a tribal development has caused existing Biloxi casinos to put expansion plans on hold and new casino companies to hesitate about investing in the city. Besides having the competitive advantage of not having to pay taxes, the tribal development near Interstate 10 would also have location advantages. It would cut off traffic from Florida and other eastern markets and would not be exposed to the risks of having to operate near the water.
Many people in Jackson County who own property near the proposed site are hesitating to build homes because they do not want a casino for a neighbor, long time home owners are worried about the traffic and possible flooding the casino will cause. It's a pity they have to wait until November 2008, to have this issue resolved.
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Congress
Lawmakers raised their pay and knocked off early anyway, even though they failed to complete one of their most basic jobs - financing the government.
It must be nice to get to determine your own salary as well as when you will work.
This year, the problem was aggravated by the fact that Congress just didn't work very hard. The House of Representatives will end its year on Friday having met in session only 86 days - the fewest since readily available records started in 1948. That includes 22 days when members didn't really have to be at the House until 6:30 p.m. for largely ceremonial votes, what one member called "bed-check" votes. "Meeting for fewer days than any time since at least 1947 is no way to run a superpower," said Rep. Jim Cooper, D-Tenn., a member of the House Budget Committee. "If you don't work at all, it should be no surprise that you're not going to get any work done . . . We've clearly failed at getting the public's business done." Indeed, while this Congress was working three-day weeks or taking weeklong breaks for Presidents Day and St. Patrick's Day, it managed to avoid such big challenges as overhauling Social Security, taxes or comprehensive immigration law. Nor did it do its most basic job - passing appropriations bills.
Wouldn't it be nice if the rest of us got to work three-day weeks, and had week long breaks for minor holidays?
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Homeowners Beware You May Still Lose Your Home to a Stinking RailRoad
Meanwhile, the southern Rapid Rail Transit Commission, which includes members from Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, is pushing Amtrak to developed a detailed investment and implementation plan to create a rail corridor along the Coast. The commission has also vowed to work with Amtrak to pursue federal, state and local funding for operation and infrastructure costs. To that end, the commission is asking for $22 million in federal funding and matching amounts from the three states served by the rail line. That amount to restore Amtrak service in the region seems to pale compared the $700 million Gov. Haley Barbour and Sen. Trent Lott sought from Congress to remove the CSX lines that bisect Mississippi's three coastal counties. That proposal, which would create a new highway along the rail's footprint, is still alive and continues to be a major hurdle to restoring the Sunset Limited.
I hope Porkbusters is still on the job.
- Death & Taxes
I found this neat website I thought I would share. Death and Taxes is a representational graph of the federal discretionary budget. The amount of money that is spent at the discretion of your elected representatives in Congress. Basically, your federal...
- Denson Hasn't Announced Whether He Is In Favor Of The Casino, But Said The Decision Should Be Made By Choctaws, Not By Jackson County Voters.
What a new chief will mean to Jackson County is uncertain. The Choctaws have announced plans to build a casino on tribal land near exit 57 of Interstate 10. Casino owners in Harrison and Hancock counties are strongly opposed to that proposal, saying the...
- Coast Residents Don't Want Casinos
The tribe has been battling Coast residents to get a $375 million casino resort approved in Jackson County on tribal land (it's not tribal land, it's land the tribe bought and it's in a County that voted no to casinos), a move local casinos...
- Choctaws Looking Forward To November Vote
I look forward to telling them we don't want a casino in Jackson County. Hopefully once the voters of Jackson County tell the Choctaws their casino isn't wanted, they will go back to Philadelphia and leave us alone. Why do they want a casino here?...
- Many People & Many Reasons For Not Wanting A Casino In Jackson County
Local pastors don't want a casino in Jackson County, they site the dangers of gambling. Environmentalist object to the proposed site which is partially wetlands and close to the Mississippi Sandhill Crane refuge. Coast Businesses For Fair Play object...