By Mitch Hinton Yes, "we have remained domestically safe from terrorists." You would hope that any President who was on duty the day of the premeditated murders of innocents would make our country safer. Yes,"he led the country to war in iraq and freed the iraqi people from a vicious dictator." His premise was? He's a danger to the world because of the W of MD we found there? "he's appointed two conservatives to the supreme court" That would be a good thing Conservatively speaking. Opinions do differ I agree. I'd like to see God, the person he listens to for guidance when making decisions, left out of how he dictates where our country is going in the future. Thanks for your honest and sincere answers. Your readers who believe you wear Bush blinders are wrong in my view. Mitch
Response from Douglas Cunningham [ADMINISTRATOR]
re, terrorists, again, that's not something we may ever know. and, we may yet be attacked again.
obviously, part of the original premise on the war was flawed -- to virtually everyone's surprise. we have to deal with the facts as they are now, though....
i'm not sure we could say that the influence of God is the driving force on the supreme court appointments. that are big differences on role of government between conservatives and liberals, among other things.
re, bush blinders, tnks.
dc
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By boris854 As a follow up, I think it would be a good service to educate the public on how the exemption works. As Far as I see it, only pre-loaded rail boxes would fall under the exemption, which we could not stop. However the minute they actually dump waste, that's a transfer station. Do you think Middletown could enact a general Solid Waste Management law (say restricting waste being "dumped" in town) to authorized facilities, either by town permit or state permit, in time prior to Chartwell actually commencing any kind of operation?
Response from Douglas Cunningham [ADMINISTRATOR]
i think chartwell is pushing the exemption far beyond its normal path. a challenge by middletown, possibly, could actually result in it being rolled back. note that norfolk southern, aside from delivering the cars here, hasn't done much.
the legal niceties are beyond my grasp. i'm here to say, though, that chartwell will understand nothing besides signed court orders, payloaders and police when the first truck rolls in.
doug
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By bminerly I realize that Beth has been addressing this issue for the past few weeks, but I was wondering what you thought about school funding. What do you think is "the problem" with school funding?
Response from Douglas Cunningham [ADMINISTRATOR]
hi,
the 'problem,' as it were, is this: school funding has ceased to be about educating children. it is, in my view, mostly about the jobs. the schools have become a vast jobs program.
meanwhile, we -- taxpayers -- pour ever-more millions of dollars into the schools. and, in most cases, get little increased performance, and in some cases, performance actually continues to decline. i realize, there are other social issues in play. but in general, we've divorced our spending from any connection to reality.
full disclosure: my wife and i homeschool our kids.i thought i got a pretty good education, but my kids are getting a vastly better education than i got.
i also grant that parents/citizens have increasingly asked the schools to basically solve all the problems that parents don't want to. and the schools can't be a universal fixer.
and i grant, the impact of a dedicated, thoughtful teacher can be huge. and many teachers toil under ridiculous conditions, year after year.
the system is, in big ways, broken. and now, it can no longer be afforded.
doug
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By boris854 So, Chartwell miscalculated the outcry from the public for a transfer station, and may do Construction & Demolition Only. This still is a transfer station, and I don't think the Rail Exemption will apply. Do these guys even have a clue, or do you think they expected the Rail Exemption to be their total cloak of secrecy?
Response from Douglas Cunningham [ADMINISTRATOR]
hi,
i think they believed -- and still believe now -- that the rail exemption is their total cloak of secrecy.
absent the city obtaining favorable judicial review AHEAD OF TIME, i predict that chartwell will be rolling trash through middletown.
the city will have to be pretty aggressive to stop this. on the other side, while chartwell has big plans, it doesn't have a lot of money, and no track record.
so, we shall see. but i don't think chartwell's backing off in the slightest.
doug
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By Mitch Hinton Morning Doug, Can you honestly and sincerely give an example of something that Bush has done to better our country? Mitch
Response from Douglas Cunningham [ADMINISTRATOR]
Mitch,
hi. it is possible, i think, that there are no good choices for some of this stuff.
we have remained domestically safe from terrorists. that, of course, reflects the absence of something, so how do we tell if he did anything? i realize the conundrum.
he attempted, and it was a worthy attempt, to do something about social security. it was also ham-handed, in focusing on one solution to the exclusion of all others.
he led the country to war in iraq and freed the iraqi people from a vicious dictator to .... what? that one's still out. victor davis hanson had a provocative column a few days ago at nro.
katrina was an unmitigated debacle.
he's appointed two conservatives to the supreme court, which was one of the reasons conservatives helped elect him. i realize opinions differ, but from my standpoint, that's a good thing.
i grant, an awful lot of things are a mess. some of them, katrina, a horrible mess. yes, some of it is his fault.
doug
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