No irony intended, I’m certain, when the ComeUnityNow folks billed their event in City Plaza tomorrow as “the hottest festival in town.” it will be that, with temperatures forecast to go above 100 degrees. But it’s Raleigh in July, so cool is not an option. And it’s for a good cause — with proceeds going […]
Bob Geary
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Senate overrides Perdue veto of H854, anti-choice bill, because Stevens and Bingham duck the vote
It takes a three-fifths majority to override a veto by the Governor. In the Senate, that would be 30 votes out of 50 if every senator is present. Today, the Senate did, indeed, override Gov. Perdue’s veto of H854, the bill to interfere with a woman’s right to choose whether to terminate a pregnancy. It […]
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Redmond: Raleigh’s in trouble with a capital “T”; McFarlane: What trouble?
Reminiscent of Harold Hill in “The Music Man,” Republican mayoral candidate Billie Redmond sees trouble in River City, er, Raleigh, though she’s been a little less specific than Hill in describing the source — in Hill’s case, it was the addition of a pool table to the billiard parlor. “Trouble with a capital “T” and […]
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“Beat the Reaper”: The game show that’s not quite as ridiculous as “Deal 4 the Debt Ceiling” (UPDATED)
illustration by Tyler Bergholz for the Independent Weekly Update, 9:45 p.m.: My reaction to Obama’s speech? Once again, he confuses everyone by starting with why the deficits are so high when the subject is supposed to be the catastrophe if we don’t increase the debt ceiling. Deficits and debt are not the same thing, and […]
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“Beat the Reaper”: The parody that’s not quite as ridiculous as what they’re doing in DC
Pondering the situation in Washington, where all is madness, I found myself trying to remember the name of the Firesign Theater bit in which game-show contestants compete for prizes at the risk of their lives. “Beat the Reaper!” it was. (Thanks, Google.) You had 10 seconds to guess which fatal disease the host just injected […]
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Roundup, Raleigh Republicans: All the news that’s right to print
We have a backlog of Republican campaign info to share. Summarizing: 1) Not one but two Republican mayoral candidates with the addition of Dr. Randall Williams this week; 2) The other, Billie Redmond, is out today with a list of her supporters, noteworthy mainly for the presence of Jim Goodmon, WRAL/Capitol Broadcasting chief, on it; […]
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Taxpayer funding supports a range of Christian programs and institutions
Next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision declaring state-sponsored prayers in the public schools to be unconstitutional. The ruling, in the case of Engel v. Vitale, sparked a firestorm of protest from the religious right over “banning God from school”a protest that’s almost antique a half-century later. From pushing […]
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Charging to a world of electric vehicles: “It’s a gold rush”
Tuesday night is “Public Night” at the Plug-In 2011 Conference & Exposition, the event at the Raleigh Convention Center for the EV — Electric Vehicles — industry. For $10, you can say you were there when your grandchildren ask, “Whatever happened to the gasoline-powered automobile?” “Well, kids,” you’ll be able to say, “it was back […]
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GOP’s new districts: Whacking up Wake (or, No soup for y’all)
Wake whacked into 11 N.C. House districts Lord knows, I hesitate to do this. For one thing, the new legislative district maps squiggle all over the place, making them extremely difficult to read in terms of who exactly lives in which district — especially if you’re squinting at a computer screen, as I am. This […]
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Republicans target Raleigh Democrat Brad Miller for his work on financial reform
It’s Monday morning, and Congressman Brad Miller, a Raleigh Democrat, is in Wake Forest talking radars, incoming torpedoes and “hard kills” with executives of a high-tech engineering firm, 3 Phoenix Inc., which designs and builds state-of-the-art electronic imaging systems for the Navy. The company’s customers aren’t all military, explains 3 Phoenix principal Joe Murray. Oil […]
