Your Virtual Front Page for Thursday, May 9, 2019

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First one of these in a while. Figured I’d acknowledge the end of the legislative session:

  1. SC Senate approves $115 million tax breaks to bring Carolina Panthers across border — Yeah, they actually did it. In Rock Hill did the Senate a stately pleasure-dome decree… Here’s how they voted in the Senate. Harpo opposed it to the last. Don’t tell me I never give you any sports news.
  2. Session ends without Senate action on education reform — But this is sort of dog-bites-man; we’ve known for some time. It’s only news at all because some folks may actually have thought that the May Day rally would change that.
  3. USC paid firm $137,000 to find its next president — then rejected all finalists — This is kinda old news now, but I include it because we haven’t had a discussion about it yet here: How about that fiasco?
  4. Trump picks former Boeing executive Patrick Shanahan for defense secretary — Well, ya know, he’s been acting since Mattis left, and nothing has blown up, so why not?
  5. How angry pilots got the Navy to stop dismissing UFO sightings — Of course, they’re aviators, not pilots, but set that aside. This is actually a couple of weeks old, but I wanted to bring it up. Aviators have been seeing white, Tic Tac-shaped vehicles that move like a bat out of you-know-where without any obvious means of propulsion. But while the Service has instituted new reporting procedures, there are no plans to release the reports to the public.
  6. Bezos company aims to take people to moon by 2024 — A nice companion piece for the UFO thing. That’s one small step for a billionaire…

There was something else I was going to put on this virtual page, but I’m forgetting what it was….

Oh, by the way, here’s Avery Wilks’ handwritten how-the-voted list on the football thing:

12 thoughts on “Your Virtual Front Page for Thursday, May 9, 2019

  1. Harry Harris

    USC paid firm $137,000 to find its next president — then rejected all finalists.
    You mean they found another way to waste money? The administrative overhead at universities is staggering. Student tuition isn’t a problem for these guys. When budgets get tight, colleges don’t cut back, they just raise tuition and fees. When public school money gets tight, they cut staff, add duties, and cut non-tested subjects. College students are burdened with debt for an education that should cost much less and is bloated with “development” projects.

    1. Barry

      I think it’s a major failure on the part of a university president when they do not groom someone to take over when they retire or resign.

      USC had someone in the w8ngs but waited to long so she went to the Univ of Minnesota as their new president.

      1. Brad Warthen Post author

        Well, I’d certainly prefer it be someone with experience in SC, and preferably within the system. Just as I applauded when they gave Harris the job, promoting from within.

        SC is different. I know academia has this thing about cross-pollination and all, fresh blood and such, but in South Carolina, local knowledge is important…

  2. Scout

    My husband is in the Chemistry department. He was quite unhappy with the prospect of Caslen, but quite liked one of the others, I think Tate. He would say that tuition goes up because the State continually decreases the portion they pay. They have definitely seen changes in funding sources in their department where they have to generate more and more of their own funding for staff, instrumentation, and research projects through grant writing and or doing contract work for private corporations.

    1. Brad Warthen Post author

      “He would say that tuition goes up because the State continually decreases the portion they pay.”

      And he would be right…

    2. Barry

      My son will be a freshman next year. The engineering dept has a $1500 fee per semester on top of tuition.

  3. bud

    I’m waiting on an appliance delivery. Just in the nick of time. The new 25% tariffs on Chinese goods just went into effect. Seems like a clumsy way to negotiate trade. I know our economy is pretty resilient but certainly not infinitely so. It will be interesting to see how this game of chicken plays out.

  4. Norm Ivey

    UFOs and aliens. Wutdahel.

    When you remove anecdotal evidence, what’s left? Some fuzzy photographs.

    I believe the aviators and most everyone else when they say they’ve seen something odd in the skies. I also believe that every sighting has an explanation.

    Before the Industrial Revolution, there are few reports of odd sightings in the sky. Then, as we began to fly, more and more of these things showed up. So did the aliens only become interested in us when we started flying? How did they find us? We’ve only been sending detectable signals into the ether for 70 years or so. For these beings to become aware of us, they’d have to be within 70 light-years. How do craft enter our atmosphere without anybody seeing them approaching through space? Not once has anyone ever produced a shred of physical evidence that any sighting is otherworldly.

    All of the objects are of terrestrial origin.

    While I’m at it, Bigfoot is nonsense as well. show me a carcass, a fossil or even scat, and I’ll believe.

    And don’t get me started on ghosts. Even if they did exist, they’re obviously harmless. Not once has anyone ever been harmed by a ghost.

    Of course, time travel could explain all of these phenomena…

  5. bud

    “A week before former National Rifle Association President Oliver North said he would not seek reelection after a failed attempt to oust CEO Wayne LaPierre, he warned the group that extraordinary legal fees threaten the future of the NRA.”

    -Huffington Post

    Is the NRA in a circular firing squad or are they shooting themselves in the foot. Shoot, the jokes just right themselves don’t they? Couldn’t happen to a more wretched bunch of scoundrels. But hey, I’m just shooting off at the mouth.

  6. Doug Ross

    “In New Hampshire, Joe Biden predicts that once President Trump is out of office, Republicans will have “an epiphany” and work with Democrats toward consensus.”

    Poor Joe. He thinks he’s living in 1985. Someone should just drive him to the nursing home and give him a bingo card.

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