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Tenn-Tom to get “preferential” Fed Funding

melt — Mon, 23 Aug 2010 10:34:20 +0000

“As a part of the Marine Highway Program, federal transportation officials selected eight projects that will receive preferential treatment for future federal assistance.
Included is the Tenn-Tom Freight Project, a proposed container-on-barge service between Mobile and the Port of Itawamba in northeast Mississippi.”

“…the Port Authority is interested in a water-based route between Mobile and the furniture factories and paper mills in northeast Mississippi.”
“That corner of Mississippi is a pretty busy spot,”.

Here’s the Jump: ‘Marine highways’ could boost Mobile-Mississippi water route

TeaBaggers’ Claim to “Grassroots” is Laughable Farce

melt — Thu, 13 May 2010 01:53:56 +0000

I always wondered how a grassroots organization suddenly came up with a fleet of shiny, brand spanking new, $1+ million dollar (each) buses to cart around the party’s faithful. Soccer Moms holding bake sales? Maybe Joe the Plumber chipped in the rest, ya think?

Well, this reporter has done the research for us, have a look-see…

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Toxic Chinese Drywall: Update

melt — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 21:39:40 +0000

It appears as if toxic Chinese drywall products were sold here in the southeast for a much longer period of time than was originally thought.
Why does it not surprise me to learn that this toxic junk first appeared on our shores shortly after the arrival of this toxic junk:

I would bet, someone with the time and inclination, could find a cozy connection between these facts and the fact that one of GWB’s top campaign contributors was CEO of a national building supply.

Anyways; here’s the jump to the drywall story over at PRWeb: Drywall Complaint Center Expands Its Knauf Chinese Drywall Investigation

And for all you conspiracy conjurers, I invite you to browse this: Google Search

Mississippi Appliance Rebate Program Starts April 22

melt — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 06:49:47 +0000

Time to throw out that old clunker and get one of them thar new fangled ice box thingy’s. Thanks to a 2.8 million dollar grant from the American Recovery Act the program encourages folks to replace their old appliances with more efficient ones.

”The State of Mississippi will implement a mail-in rebate program to help residents replace old, inefficient appliances with new, ENERGY STAR® qualified appliances. The program is scheduled to begin April 22, 2010 and will continue until funds are depleted.”

Here’s the scoop on all you need to know, complete with local participating retailers:

Mississippi Energy Efficient Appliance Rebate Program

Rural Broadband Still A ‘Pipe’ dream

melt — Tue, 21 Apr 2009 10:35:36 +0000

And if the large ISP carriers(ATT and Verizon) have their way, it will remain just that, a pipedream. Efforts are underway to have wireless networks classified as “broadband” in an attempt to get a bigger slice of the Stimulus pie. And we all know that wireless networks are very far from “broadband”, and especially so in rural Mississippi.

I recently had the chance to test a local wireless service from ATT here in Tupelo. The price is around $50 a month and has a stingy 5 gigabyte cap or limit. You can get the aircard itself for free, if you sign a 2-year agreement.

The card they sent us was the Sierra Silverlight and out of the box wouldn’t load the software from it’s internal storage. I called them and they had me download the ATT Communication Manager from their website. After a lengthy install procedure, the software opened and started to look for a signal. Took a minute or two to find a signal, and a few more minutes to negotiate the connection to the internet. All tolled, it was about 6-7 minutes from initiating the software to connect to the net. And you thought your old 56k modem was slow! LOL.

And the slowness continues. From the three physical locations I tested this device, the 2G network was the only connection available. All the testing points were well within the city, although not “downtown”. A 3G network was found at one point but degraded to 2G upon negotiation. Performance at all three locations was about the same, extremely poor. Only marginally better than that old 56k modem. I can see now how they can get away with the 5 gig cap, you could never download that much in a month.

Here’s a close-up of the thing, it doesn’t look like much and it surely ain’t!

Click to enlarge

To add insult to injury, they are also attempting to have these networks exempt from the net-neutrality rules. This would effectively let them decide what applications you could use. They want to get paid to build an 8-lane superhighway while only providing a dirt path. And since conditions are so bad on the path you can only use a horse and buggy on it.
Here’s a jump to a reference article at gigaom: Carriers Aim to Keep Rural Broadband Under Their Thumb

Chinese Drywall Horrors Hitting Mississippi

melt — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 03:35:44 +0000

Many homes rebuilt on the coast after hurricane Katrina used imported Chinese drywall. Now the stuff is making the occupants sick and forcing them, once again, to pick up and move out, fast.

Mississippi attorney Steve Mullins has joined the cadre of court actions.

"Bloody noses, headaches, respiratory infections," Mullins said, ticking off the list of health problems reported by his clients. "Over and over like a broken record."

Besides being extremely unhealthy for humans, the stuff is literally eating away at most metals contained in modern homes, even metals like copper and stainless steel that are corrosion resistant. Some people are even reporting that it is eating there silverware.

Chinese manufacturers flooded the U.S. market with more than 500 million pounds of drywall around the same time Katrina was flooding New Orleans, an Associated Press review of shipping records has found.

That year, enough wallboard was imported from China to build some 34,000 homes of roughly 2,000 square feet each, according to the AP’s analysis and estimates supplied by the nationwide drywall supplier United States Gypsum. But experts and advocates say many homes may have been built with a mixture of Chinese and domestic drywall — which could push the number of affected homes to 100,000 or more, by some estimates.

Jump to: Tainted Chinese drywall shows up in Katrina homes

Socialism Rages in Mississippi House and Senate

melt — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 17:41:31 +0000

During last November’s election cycle we all learned from that great American Scholar and Orator, Joe the Plumber, that socialism is, “the taking of wealth from one to give to another”. Many members of the Mississippi House and Senate paraded around the state repeating the line. It was proclaimed as Universal and Authoritative truth.

Now these same fellows want to tax my pack of American made Camels so that some kid can buy a pair of $100 sneakers probably made in India with child labor, no less, and pay no taxes.

Yes Sir! Socialism is alive and well and finds a comfortable home in the Mississippi House and Senate.

Pendergest-Holt arrested by FBI

melt — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 03:14:00 +0000

A principal player, and local resident, in the well-known Stanford scandal has been arrested for obstructing the Securities and Exchange guys.

Here’s the jump AP via Newser: FBI arrests Stanford Financial Group exec

Now, if only we could get the FBI to arrest all the Rebooblican OBSTRUCTIONISTS in the U.S. House and Senate.

Toyota lays off 1000

melt — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 15:58:50 +0000

A Japanese business journal, the Nikkei, reported yesterday that Toyota is laying off 1000 workers in its plant in the UK. Today, Reuters is reporting the consideration of “thousands more” lay offs in the UK and US.

Just doesn’t look too good for the Blue Springs project. Has Tupelo built a $30 million water line to nowhere?

Here’s the jump to the Reuters post: Possible Toyota job cuts as auto crisis roils

Mississippi Nursing Homes Rated

melt — Tue, 23 Dec 2008 12:51:22 +0000

The CMS (Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services) has issued quality ratings for 15,800 nursing homes throughout the USA that participate in Medicare or Medicaid. Each nursing home is assigned a star rating, from one to five – with five being the best. The ratings are based on health inspection surveys, staffing information, and quality of care measures.

Some for-profit nursing homes do not provide the same quality of care as non-profit homes. An analysis of the data found 19% of non-profit nursing homes got five stars, compared to 9% of for-profit facilities. The ratings were based on inspection records, complaint investigations and quality measures.

Mississippi
23.2% of all nursing homes have a 1-star ranking
13.3% of all nursing homes have a 5-star ranking

Here’s the jump to the Medical News Today Post: 15,800 American Nursing Homes Rated By Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services

Here’s a Jump to the medicare.gov web to quicky compare Nursing Homes in this or any area, simply by entering in the Zip Code: here