A Pound of Thoughts

I’m a little upset.  Wintry weather is moving in to the Deep South, but not in the Deep South.  Here’s the forecast for tonight here:

Cloudy. Chance of rain showers in the evening…then slight chance of rain mixed with snow after midnight. Lows in the lower 30s. Northwest winds 10 to 20 mph. Chance of precipitation 30 percent. Little to no accumulation expected.

Now Jackson is getting snow.  Starkville (MSU) is getting snow…Hattiesburg may get snow, too!  But noo!  Not Lucedale!

Oh well…Guess I’ll have to wait ’til next year.

In her speech on Thursday night, Hillary Clinton said:

Some people have said Mississippi will most likely be in favor of Obama. I said, well that’s fine, but I want people in Mississippi to know I want to be there for you.

She said she would hire a staffer with the sole responsibility of providing progress reports on the Gulf Coast’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina.

Hmm..okay, whatever.  And that’s increasing the level of response she says we haven’t had?  Yeah, right.  I’m going to have to go back and find out how many times she came down here after the storm.

Source:  Clarion-Ledger

How about some feel-good music?

Chevron Corporation has decided to build a plant at the refinery in Pascagoula to test a process to boost heavy crude oil refining.

Per the Sun Herald:

Construction on the plant, which has already received needed permits, will begin later this year. The facility will have a daily capacity of 3,500 barrels, and will use a process in development since 2003 to refine heavy oil into gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.

This is good news.  Finally an oil company decides to do something to increase our refining capabilities here at home.  I know that this won’t have a huge impact on our fuel supply, but it will help.  I hope the “test” is successful, and I hope that it will be implemented later at every refinery in the United States.  This will only be a temporary fix, though, to our dependence on foreign oil.  We must eventually find an alternative energy source, such as ethanol produced from sugar cane.

Remember when, while campaigning in Iowa, Democratic Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton said this:

“I was shocked when I learned Iowa and Mississippi have never elected a woman governor, senator or member of Congress. There has got to be something at work here…How can Iowa be ranked with Mississippi?  That’s not the quality. That’s not the communitarianism, that’s not the openness I see in Iowa.”

Well, apparently Barack Obama’s campaign is going to try to hold her accountable for the comment.  Her comment made a lot of Mississippians mad, and she has not apologized for the comment.  I would like to see her try and explain just exactly what she meant.  Either way, it will definitely hurt her even more than she is already hurting.

Plus, with our large African-American population (especially in the Delta), I don’t think she has a chance of carrying The Magnolia State.

It’s definitely going to be an interesting weekend.  Oh, by the way, Hillary will be in Canton tonight.  According to the Clarion-Ledger, she will be at the state Democratic Party’s Jefferson Jackson Hamer Day Dinner.  It begins at 7:30 in the Canton Multipurpose and Equine Center.  Tickets are $125 each.  Bill will be in Hattiesburg, Meridian and Tupelo on Friday.

UPDATE (5:13 p.m.):  The House gave final passage to the bill, voting 111-8 in favor of it.  Now it goes to the Governor’s desk.  It also requires that an online database be kept and employers use it to determine if their potential employees are actually U.S. citizens.  Click here for the updated article.

The Mississippi House of Representatives passed a Senate bill this morning that would require a U.S. citizenship check by employers for new employees.

Per the Sun Herald:

The bill could come up for debate in the House this afternoon, and if it passes there, would wind up on Gov. Haley Barbour’s desk to be signed into law. Sen. Michael Watson, R-Pascagoula, who was elected last fall, authored the bill.

“I’m extremely excited that the Judiciary B committee in the House has decided to allow the full House to debate this bill on its merits,” Watson said in a news release. “Hopefully, this is the first step in the right direction in curbing the illegal immigration problems our state and our nation are facing.”

Way to go!  I’m extremely proud of our lawmakers.  Now maybe the rest of the nation will follow suit.

I’ll keep you updated on the progress of the bill.

Apparently I missed an exciting night of politics.  John Sidney McCain won the Republican nomination.  Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton won Ohio, Texas, and Rhode Island.  Barack Hussein Obama only won Vermont (thanks to Ben & Jerry).  Wow, must have been exciting to watch for the Dhimmis!  (I was too busy sleeping like a baby.)

Now the whole nation turns its eyes to Mississippi.  Forty delegates are up for grabs for Democrats.  They will be proportionally awarded, so I think Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton and Barack Hussein Obama will be campaigning hard here over the next week.  And they will have to campaign hard.  Mississippians aren’t gullible, and they aren’t stupid.  It will take some convincing.  I am curious as to who Dems think will win.  So, who do you think will win The Magnolia State - Diane?

or Hussein?

…because I was up all (well, most) of the night watching the bad weather roll on through.  About every 10-15 minutes they came on with a weather alert.  Like I said last night, I have never seen so many potential tornadoes.  I’m just waiting for more news articles about the damage (hopefully no one was seriously hurt).

Oh, and I heard this morning that it’s going to be cold tonight.  We’re going to have a high of 55 degrees (which we already had at 6:30 this morning) and a low in the low 30’s.

I wish this weather would make up its mind.

Oh, one more thing…Anyone going to be watching the election results?  I won’t.  I’ll be sleeping.

Update:  Storms injure 14 at Camp Shelby

Update 12:34 a.m.:  It is now confirmed.  A tornado did damage a barracks at Camp Shelby and there are minor injuries.  In the last 10 minutes there have been three to four tornado warnings in a 30-mile radius of our house….Scary!

Update 12:25 a.m.:  Breaking news from WLOX-TV, a local station.  A tornado has confirmed to have touched down at Camp Shelby, an Army National Guard base just southeast of Hattiesburg (an hour away).  There are unconfirmed reports that there was some barracks damage, with nine injuries.  I’ll have more as the news updates.

I have never liked bad weather.  I have always been fascinated by it, and at the same time, terrified of it.  It was really bad when I was a kid.  As I’ve grown up, the effect has waned.  However, staying here through Hurricane Katrina I think enhanced it again.  That was the most harrowing experience of my life that I can remember.

I don’t know what has given me this "irrational" fear of storms.  Maybe it is as my mom says.  You see, I was born on March 27, 1978.  On the early morning of September 13, 1979, Hurricane Frederic made landfall in Gulf Shores, Alabama.  Later that morning, he passed right over Lucedale.  My parents stayed at my grandmother’s house, and I was with them (of course).  My mom said I slept right through it.  However, I think it made a profound impact on me.

With that said, the weather we’re having in our area tonight is surreal.  I have never seen so many "centers of rotation" on the radar.  The storms are moving to the northeast at 50 mph.  The whole system is moving east at 25 mph.  If you were to calculate the relative velocity of the storm, the numbers are staggering.  Call me crazy, but it worries me.  Here’s a screenshot of the radar:

Scary isn’t it?  All that red moving in from the west.  It’s going to be a long night.

Well, today is March 2nd.  I didn’t get to post anything on March 1st, so I’ll post it today.  It’s officially Spring!!  (Yesterday was the first day of Spring meteorogically.)  That is why I have changed my theme - to celebrate the new season.

I just love this time of year.  The weather is always nice.  Not too hot, not too cold.  The nights are still cool.  Not to mention my birthday is in March, although this year I’m not looking forward to it that much…Reason being, it’s a landmark year.  (I’ll let you guess which one.)

Another landmark of this month is that this blog will turn one year old.  (Does this mean I can eat solid food now?)  Wow.  I’ve been blogging for a whole year! I know to you veterans that doesn’t mean much…Some of you have been blogging for 2 or 3 years, some even 4 years.  (I don’t see how you’ve done it that long!  Kudos!)

Well, since it’s now spring, how about a little something…green?  This is not an original photo (meaning that I didn’t take it).  I just found it and liked it.  Enjoy and Happy Spring!

Last week, I read this article on Fox News’ website. It outraged me so much, that I did something I have never done before – I e-mailed the subject of the article, Mr. Norman Finkelstein. Here’s what I wrote:

From: mstate_dawg@hotmail.com
To: normangf[at]hotmail.com
Subject: Your views on Hezbollah and Israel
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 14:41:51 -0600

Mr. Finkelstein:

You are a traitor to your heritage, to the Jews, and to the United States. Your support of a terrorist organization should land you in jail.

You should be prosecuted for treason against the United States, and you belong with Hezbollah.

Sincerely,
A Patriotic American

Well, much to my surprise, he posted this e-mail on his website! I wasn’t the only one that e-mailed him because of the article, but I was one of the “nicer” ones. If the article outrages you like it does me, send him a NastyGram (but be nice!). He deserves to know that there are patriotic Americans out there that love our country and love Israel.

How can someone whose own parents suffered terror support a terrorist group? It just boggles my mind.