After last night’s Board meeting, Shenandoah County citizens will probably see a 6% tax increase next cycle. Thirteen more full-time emergency responders will be hired, raising the Fire and Rescue budget to almost $2 million per year.

The increase is to make up for the inability of volunteer squads in Strasburg and New Market to meet call demands. Projections show the trend continuing, with Shenandoah County’s F&R budget rising 50% in the next three years. In today’s terms, that’s another 10% increase in taxes.

My opinion is that this is a conservative (lowball) estimate. But whatever the results, your wallet will be much, much lighter.

The problem stems from three factors: failure of the County to support the volunteer companies, control of dispatching and emergency services under a single department, and high call-volume departments getting paid assistance at the expense of the whole county.Supervisor Morris stated the County is supporting the companies, but the yearly amount totals $80 to $130 thousand per department. Five years of that wouldn’t buy a single fire truck.

The volunteer companies are providing 24 hr, 7 days per week, 365 days per year coverage valuing $2 million per year. That doesn’t include the buildings, equipment, or vehicles.

After several statewide meetings —1st and 2nd Virginia Volunteer/Combination Summits— with volunteer and paid first responders, Shenandoah County has now turned its back on the volunteers.

“The trend is inevitable”, Gary Yew says, citing Frederick County. Note that Frederick A) never participated in the summits, B) deeply regrets what happened to their volunteers, and C) taxes the bejeebers out of its citizens to pay for the full-time staff. In fact, they were an early example of what not to do.

I made a plea to tax only the fire or rescue districts that incurred the huge expenses. If that happened —IF— it would slow down the erosion of the remaining healthy volunteer companies. We’ll see . . . . but don’t hold your breath.

According to the Register, Al Gore’s climate change website was hacked.  They have a screenshot and details, but it looks like the website has since been restored:

A blog on a site promoting Al Gore’s climate change documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, has been hacked by penis pill-promoting spammers.

Links on the blog portion of the climatecrisis.net site point to websites hawking . . . . drugs including Viagra and Xanax. 

You’d think the guy who invented the internet could do better than that, but then maybe he didn’t want to waste energy keeping the site secure!

A short while ago I wrote about the media deliberately distorting the truth (‘Finding Truth’) but they aren’t the only ones. The National Park Service has no problem making stuff up either.

An article in the NVD about tourism in Shenandoah National Park shows that October visits were down 10% from last year, and down about 20% from the last ten years’ average. (Click here for archived copy)

Instead of simply saying that park attendance for foliage-watching is declining, the NPS decided to make up imaginary reasons for the lower turnout.

The main factor that could have affected visitation in October this year was bad weather, she said.

“You are going to have some ups and downs, and a lot of it can be generally attributed to weather,” she said. “All you have to have is a rainy October and your visitation is going to be down.”

The truth is exactly opposite: October 2007 was a gorgeous month.  For agriculture —and for most growing things— it wasn’t great; there was much less rain than usual. At the Luray weather station, there was 33% less rain than long-term average and only one-third the rain of last October. All along the Blue Ridge the same is true.

Tourism is a flaky business and has its ups and downs. It’s a leisure activity; something that people do when they don’t have to do other things and they feel like doing this one (tourism) thing.

But the bottom line here is that some folks —their salaries paid by your tax dollars— will lie like a rug. When they do it on your dime, trying to make sure your taxes continue to flow toward a declining activity, they need to be called on it.

The weather this Thanksgiving has been beautiful; almost unreal. The air clean and clear, the light strong and bright. It’s enough to —well, make you give thanks.

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The sunshine faded to this, the last minutes of light in the day.

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“Shenandoah County is a beautiful place, a gorgeous place to live. Everyday we are treated to more of the Creator’s splendors than many people see in a lifetime.”

Everyday. Every single day.  For that I give thanks.

In an attempt to undermine the truth of America’s greatness, USA Today claims the first Thanksgiving was held by a Spaniard in (what is now) Florida.  According to this story, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés celebrated a feast of thanksgiving with the (now extinct) Timucuan Indians. It’s a stretch, but so far we can give them the benefit of the doubt.

The article continues that this feast of thanksgiving was . . . . bean soup. No way! If this feast meal actually happened —it is very doubtful they gave thanks for bean soup— the event deserves to be forgotten suppressed. We all know the first Thanksgiving was in Virginia, but it is better to have people believe the Pilgrims had the first Thanksgiving rather than America’s first holiday being over bean soup.

Hat tip to Jim Bacon

Christ Church of Arlington is hosting its annual Arlington Turkey Trot: 5k Fun Run/Walk around the Lyon Park and Ashton Heights neighborhood. To “enjoy a fun, healthy Thanksgiving activity together, and to raise support for two local charities: Arlington-Alexandria Coalition for the Homeless (AACH) and Doorways for Women & Families.”  Blacknell’s leftie website has some photos.

In the real world —not the manmade one— turkeys look like this. Only one is ‘trotting’ though.

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“Shenandoah County is a beautiful place, a gorgeous place to live. Everyday we are treated to more of the Creator’s splendors than many people see in a lifetime.” Everyday. Every single day.

Take a ride with me . . . .

Day one: Chest discomfort gets antibiotic prescribed. Leave doctor’s office, fill prescription, start to drive home. Doctor calls and asks me go to emergency room. Now. Four hours later I’m informed that no damage “has occurred yet” and I have a stress test next day.

Day two: Arrive for tests, get injected with tracer. Wait an hour, get put in machine to photograph heart. Setting my things down, I ask, “Is my camera OK in here?”  The reply is, “Sure, you’re the only thing that’s radioactive.” LOL

Get hooked to monitor with a dozen wires and put on treadmill. Three minutes into it the doctor get alarmed and cuts the test off. He points out heart blockage on the chart, and lets me know that walking into the backyard without someone else is dangerous. Another cardiac photo, and I go home.

Day three: Regular doctor calls me, orders me to take an aspirin “now, right now”. Prohibits any activity that increases heart rate. Based on tests, I’ll need catheterization or bypass surgery. Five more minutes and a surgeon calls, asks how soon I can be at the hospital.

Two hours later I’m prepped and in the catheter lab. I wimp out and take ‘mild’ anesthesia that knocks me out except during the dye tests. Ouch that stuff burns! Another hour and I’m awake for the news that the ticker was and is perfect.

Day four: What a ride!  Thanksgiving.

A warm autumn morning. Last night’s mist is lifting

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“Shenandoah County is a beautiful place, a gorgeous place to live. Everyday we are treated to more of the Creator’s splendors than many people see in a lifetime.” Everyday. Every single day.

On a (much, much) lighter note. Complete with “Chuck Norris Facts®” included.

Thanks to Mason Conservative for highlighting what has got to be one of the best political ads in years.

PS:  Perhaps it is surprising since his films are beat-em-ups, but Norris is an articulate writer.  He reminds us that “before you eat your Thanksgiving meal, don’t forget to thank God for our troops too. While they serve freedom for us, the least we can do is serve them a little honor and remembrance.”  Amen.

Is illegal immigration just another issue to use for political gain? You’d think with all the attention to it that folks would want to have —or at least be open to— discussing its root causes. That doesn’t always seem to be true.

An attempt at Bacon’s Rebellion to seriously look at a basic cause of immigration immediately got derailed. At a panel discussion on the subject, the same thing happened to me. When I stuck to the subject, the moderator declared the issue off limits!

Here’s a couple litmus tests on whether the issue’s being cynically used, or if there’s a decent chance of discussion:

Whether illegal immigration is a problem. Disagree over the extent of the problem, disagree over what the problems are, or disagree over how to address the problem all you want. But denying that there is any problem is dishonest, the sign of a closed mind.

Here’s another example:

Send “them” all back on buses. Critics say it can’t be done, because there are 12 million illegal immigrants in America. The statement actually means, ‘I won’t discuss it’; simple calculations show the numbers work easily. Whether it’s politically feasible, affordable, or a good idea doesn’t matter when people refuse to discuss the subject for bogus reasons.

So what is behind all this illegal immigration? What’s driving it? At the personal level, Latin-Americans immigrate —legally or not— for job opportunities. It’s not complicated, they want to work and get ahead in life.

Driving them out are their governments, some of the worlds most corrupt political systems. It isn’t lack of opportunity or product —Interstate 81 is choked with trucks delivering goods from Mexico— that drives masses to America.

Latin Americans are driven away from their homes by corrupt systems that bleed the life out of individual free enterprise. It is endemic; part and parcel of life south of the border.

Anyone who’s ever been there for more than a vacation knows it.  Industry knows it.  The countries themselves know it. Mainstream media knows it. Investors know it.  Even online media knows it.

“Corruption in Mexico remains endemic. This is a country, after all, where one in 20 students has paid a bribe to get a diploma, one in 10 drivers has received a license through a payoff, and one in four residents has bribed city workers to pick up the garbage” —Transparency and Corruption Laboratory at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

So for all you bleeding-heart lefties out there, the best thing that could ever happen to our southern neighbors is government reform.

To all of you cold-hearted right-wingers, the best thing that could ever happen to our southern neighbors is government reform.

To everyone else, there is only one humane, reasonable and responsible response to the waves of poverty stricken humanity that is washing over our borders: government reform in Central America.

Given that America is spending millions every day in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring decent governments to the area; it would seem reasonable for America’s federal government to push our neighbors in Latin America —diplomatically and economically— toward ethics reform.

What’s so hard about that?

Further data, statistics and associated information found in Transparency International’s Global Corruption Report 2007.

 Lines and Shadows, is still one of the best insights into illegal immigration available.