Articles Comments

Barb’s Blog » Entries tagged with "big"

Obama Rewards Big Donors

November 19th, 2009 | 2 Comments

According to Politico of the nearly 80 ambassadorship nominations or confirmations since Obama’s Inauguration, 56 percent were given to political appointees and 44 percent have gone to career diplomats, according to records kept by the American Foreign Service Association. Beatrice Wilkinson Welters was nominated to serve as ambassador to the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago in the Caribbean. She and her husband generated between $200,000 and $500,000 in donations to Obama’s presidential campaign and an additional $100,000 for his Inauguration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. The Welters can be counted among the nearly two dozen Obama bundlers — fundraisers who together organized and solicited more than $10 million in donations during the 2008 campaign — who now are being dispatched to some of the world’s greatest cities. Charles H. Rivkin, … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Replacement Lamp

May 18th, 2009 | Add a Comment

Last year about this time, through an interesting set of events, (Laura calls it from heaven), we received a Panasonic high-definition big screen TV. We were excited to watch it, only to find after some detective work, it wasn’t operating correctly due to a broken lamp. I phoned Panasonic, and found out that the lamp was shattered and would need to be replaced…for $283.00. I quickly hung up to decide if that was worth it. After some time,  decided to buy the lamp. Only one year later, the lamp has shattered again. Once again, I didn’t rush to buy one, I wanted to see if it was worth it. A few times with my room full of teenagers, I thought it just might be worth a second try. This time I decided before phoning … Read entire article »

Filed under: Personal

Hey Big Spender

March 9th, 2009 | Add a Comment

England is one of the U.S.’s best and oldest allies. I think Obama showed bad judgement returning  the Churchill bust that Britain gave the White House after 9/11. Even so, Prime Minister Brown gave Obama on his first official visit to the Obama White House a nice and thoughtful set of gifts: • An ornamental desk pen holder made from the oak timbers of Victorian anti-slaver HMS Gannet. (Which reportedly delighted Obama, who placed it on his Oval Office desk.) • The framed commission for the Gannet’s sister ship, the HMS Resolute; the historic Oval Office desk was a gift from Queen Victoria, carved with wood salvaged from the Resolute. • A first-edition set of the seven-volume classic biography of Winston Churchill by Sir Martin Gilbert. Very thoughtful presents. Obama’s gift to Brown? A boxed set of DVDs. 25 classic American … Read entire article »

Filed under: News Items

Pork Barrel Spending

April 29th, 2005 | 1 Comment

This morning as I grabbed my morning cup of tea, FOXNEWS was interviewing someone regarding government waste. This was once an issue on the forefront of people’s minds and was also rather newsworthy, but you don’t hear much about it anymore. The interview made me realize this kind of waste still goes on, even though people don’t talk much about it anymore. Here some examples: $5,786,000 – wood utilization research (Alaska, Idaho, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oregon and Tennessee) $4,177,000 – shrimp aquiculture research (Arizona, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas) $645,000 – alternative salmon products research (Alaska) $250,000 – Vidalia onion research (Georgia) $200,000 – barley food health benefits research Onion research? $3,000,000 – research on the Charleston Bump, an offshore bottom feature that attracts a large number of fish mp is a dance? Fish need … Read entire article »

Filed under: General