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The Cotton Boll Conspiracy

  • Trifle with Bill Connor at your own peril

    Number of comments: 1
    Even in a state with a penchant for Cro-Magnon-like political machinations, one would hope for better than thinly veiled threats against penny-ante bloggers. It would appear my Tuesday post ridiculing Lt. Governor candidate Bill Connor’s sky-is-falling act regarding the hacking of his website by purported cronies of Osama bin Laden (no, really) ruffled a few feathers.  Shortly after I [...]
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    Posted: December 02, 2009, 11:23pm EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Just who’s trying to ‘hack & own’ whom?

    Number of comments: 3
    Radical Islam represents a far greater threat to America than most of us realize. Why, just this week Osama bin Laden’s minions apparently hacked into the campaign website of South Carolina Lt. Governor candidate Bill Connor. A screenshot of Connor’s website Tuesday morning showed the following: “This is hacked & owned … by Dr. Hiad” [...]
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    Posted: December 01, 2009, 9:56pm EST
    by southcarolina1670

  • Civil Rights justice: Overdue, vital

    Most rational people would agree that premeditated murder is wrong and that it’s in society’s best interests to pursue murderers as a means to both serve justice and show respect to the families of the dead. But not everyone sees it that way, apparently. An Associated Press report in The State that details the FBI’s attempt to solve long-dormant murder cases related to the Civil Rights [...]
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    Posted: November 24, 2009, 3:16pm EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Detroit: Post-apocalyptic America

    And you thought things were bad in rural South Carolina… A story in The Week details the myriad woes of Detroit, and they are legion. They include: In July, the median Detroit home price was $7,000. “That’s not a typo,” the Week points out. The Detroit public school system today is so bad [...]
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    Posted: November 23, 2009, 12:32pm EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Remembrance Day, 2009

    Number of comments: 1
    In Flanders Fields In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the dead. Short days ago We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved, and were loved, and now we lie In Flanders [...]
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    Posted: November 11, 2009, 8:24am EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Poll: Add grain of salt to kids’ answers

    Number of comments: 1
    Every so often a student survey is trotted out to show the current generation’s lack of knowledge regarding history. The latest comes from Scotland, where according to a recent poll, one in 20 Scottish children think Adolf Hitler was Germany’s national soccer coach, 21 percent believe Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels [...]
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    Posted: November 08, 2009, 12:22pm EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • ‘Spring’ – Konstantin Pankov

    Born into a family of hunters in the far northern region of Russia in 1910, Konstantin Pankov became the first Nenets artist. He started to paint his landscapes in the 1920s, although he had never seen a single painting because of his family’s remote location and lifestyle. He joined the Red Army as a sniper [...]
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    Posted: November 03, 2009, 2:33pm EST
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Leabhar Cheanannais

    Number of comments: 2
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    Posted: October 26, 2009, 10:20pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

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    Posted: October 02, 2009, 9:09pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • ‘The State’ of watchdog journalism

    The State newspaper prides itself on watchdog journalism, but in reality the watchdog is little more than old, toothless canine whose bark and bite have seen better days. The paper has been scooped repeatedly by the Columbia Free Times and local bloggers on happenings at Innovista, the University of South Carolina’s taxpayer-funded research [...]
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    Posted: September 29, 2009, 8:19am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • On life expectancy and health care

    It’s nice to see a little common sense injected into the health care debate, no matter how infrequently it happens. Take this letter to The Washington Post: The Sept. 23 front-page article “For French, U.S. Health Debate Hard to Imagine” cited the longer life expectancy of the French compared with Americans as an [...]
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    Posted: September 29, 2009, 12:50am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • ‘Last Ottoman’ buried in Istanbul

    Ertugrual Osman, the 43rd Head of the dethroned House of Osman and regarded by Turks as the “last Ottoman,” died last week at age 97. As the last surviving grandson of Sultan Abdul-Hamid II, who ruled the Ottoman Empire from 1876-1909, Osman would have been known as his Imperial Highness Prince Shehzade Ertugrul [...]
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    Posted: September 28, 2009, 5:27am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Bank of SC Corp. suspends dividend

      Officials with the Bank of South Carolina Corp. have opted to temporarily suspend the company’s third-quarter cash dividend, saying it will put the money toward its loan-loss reserves, according to The Charleston Post and Courier. Executives said they expect to reinstate the dividend in the fourth quarter. The community bank had been paying a quarterly dividend of 16 cents [...]
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    Posted: September 28, 2009, 12:34am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Civil war marker to be unveiled

    A Civil War battlefield in central Missouri has a new monument honoring 123 Union soldiers who died in one of the war’s lesser-known but grisliest clashes. The monument in Centralia will be unveiled Sunday, the 145th anniversary of the Centralia Massacre and ensuing Battle of Centralia. The battle came late in the war, in [...]
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    Posted: September 26, 2009, 12:14am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • First Citizens acquires failed bank

    First Citizens Bancorporation of South Carolina is the Palmetto State’s second-largest bank company, but it’s making a run for the top spot. Friday, Columbia-based First Citizens assumed the deposits of $2 billion Georgian Bank, following the latter’s closure by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. Atlanta-based Georgian Bank’s five branches will reopen Monday as branches of [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 5:39pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Renault upholds French auto tradition

    The French automaking industry has long had a reputation for turning out vehicles that appear to be built completely from scratch, as though there was not a single other car in the world from which to turn for inspiration. Renault upholds that tradition with a couple of its prototype electric cars: the Twizy, shown [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 6:48am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Provident faces delisting by NASDAQ

    Number of comments: 1
    Rock Hill, SC-based Provident Community Bancshares announced Thursday that it has been informed by NASDAQ that its common stock has not met the minimum market value guidelines laid out by the stock exchange and that it risks being delisted from the NASDAQ Global Market. The company received a letter from NASDAQ on Sept. 22, providing notice [...]
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    Posted: September 25, 2009, 12:35am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Clemson lays egg on personal freedom

    For all the advantages of living in a major university town – incredible educational opportunities, myriad cultural events, big-time athletics – there are some real drawbacks, too. Among them, having to put up with elitist namby-pambys who want the world, or at least their neighborhoods, to conform their narrow ideal.  Case in point: The city of Clemson, [...]
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    Posted: September 24, 2009, 7:51am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Collexis loses board member

    Struggling Columbia technology company Collexis Holdings is down to six directors following the resignation of Mark Auerbach last month. Auerbach, a director since June 2007,  resigned effective Aug. 19, according to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Auerbach, a certified public accountant, chaired and served on the board’s audit committee, and in 2009 [...]
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    Posted: September 24, 2009, 12:05am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Coffee, health care and Leviathan

    Doug French of the Ludwig von Mises Institute compares the problems inherent with government intervention in the free market. He begins by looking at the coffee industry in Venezuela, which at one time rivaled Colombia, still the No. 2 world producer behind Brazil. But even though Venezuela is blessed with the required porous soil and perfect climate, [...]
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    Posted: September 23, 2009, 9:12am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • FDIC eyes extraordinary measures

    The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. is pondering moving into unchartered territory in it struggle to shore up the dwindling fund that insures bank deposits. The agency is considering borrowing billions from healthy banks or even imposing a special fee on the banking industry. Some 94 banks have failed already in 2009 and hundreds more are expected [...]
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    Posted: September 23, 2009, 7:36am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Free lunch invite promises heartburn

    Apparently the criteria for mass transportation projects is no longer need, but opportunity. At least, that’s what one gathers from developments in the South Carolina Upstate. From the Palmetto Insider blog: The Greenville News writes breathlessly about the possibility of numerous Upstate communities being connected by a proposed regional “bus rapid transit” [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 8:47am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Remembering tomato man Jack Hanna

    The recent death of Nobel Peace Prize-winning agronomist Norman Borlaug brings to mind the contributions of Gordie “Jack” Hanna, the University of California-Davis professor who revolutionized the tomato-growing industry. In the early 1940s, California’s tomato industry was threatened due to a lack of laborers to harvest the crops. In response, the UC [...]
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    Posted: September 22, 2009, 7:28am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • First Financial plans stock sale

    First Financial Holdings Inc., of Charleston, SC, is looking to raise $50 million, saying it might use some of the money to acquire struggling institutions. First Financial, the parent of Federal Savings and Loan Association, said Monday it launched an offering of its common stock. It is offering more than 2.8 million shares at [...]
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    Posted: September 21, 2009, 1:45pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Vermeer masterpiece returns to NY

    Number of comments: 1
    For the first time in 70 years, Johannes Vermeer’s “The Milkmaid” is back in North America, part of a modest show of paintings by the artist and other Dutch Masters lent to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art by the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The exhibit marks the founding of New Amsterdam 400 [...]
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    Posted: September 21, 2009, 9:51am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Cotton on edge as season winds down

    Uncertainty remains regarding cotton prices as the 2009 growing season winds down, Southeast Farm Press reports. Weathers concerns, a world production shortfall and a debt-ridden US economy are primary factors that will likely impact the cotton market over the next few months, according to Peter Egli, a cotton market analyst with Plexus Cotton [...]
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    Posted: September 21, 2009, 9:32am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Halifax Explosion survivor dies

    One of the last survivors of the Halifax Explosion of 1917 died last week in Nova Scotia. Eric Davidson, who was blinded in the disaster, was 94. Davidson was two and a half years old on Dec. 6, 1917, when two ships collided in Halifax harbor, creating the biggest man-made explosion at the [...]
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    Posted: September 18, 2009, 12:43pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Tech firm leaves Columbia for coast

    Columbia software developer Acadia Human Capital Solutions, which recently received a hefty infusion of capital, will relocate to Charleston and double its work force within the year, according to The Post and Courier. Acadia develops software to help employees manage human resources. The move comes after PMW Technologies bought the company in conjunction with a [...]
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    Posted: September 17, 2009, 8:39pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • New TSFG campus may be hard sell

    The South Financial Group’s efforts to sell its new corporate headquarters appear to progressing, albeit slowly. According to The Greenville News, “Everyone from state Commerce Secretary Joe Taylor to Greenville Mayor Knox White has signed on to a push to fill the corporate headquarters complex along Interstate 85 that The South Financial Group [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 2:25am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Civil War soldier headed home

    An unknown Union soldier who died nearly 150 years ago at the Battle of Antietam is headed to his home state, nearly a year after his remains were discovered in a cornfield. During a 15-minute ceremony Tuesday at the battlefield cemetery, park superintendent John W. Howard placed a small wooden box containing about [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 1:57am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Mason assumes more duties at FNSC

    Barry Mason is the new president and chief executive officer of First National Bancshares, the Spartanburg, SC-based holding company that’s struggling to keep its head above water, the company announced Tuesday. Before the move could be made, First National’s board had to receive approval from the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond because of an agreement entered [...]
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    Posted: September 16, 2009, 1:35am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Frierson resignation raises questions

    The resignation of Carolina First Bank president Scott Frierson elicited a couple of interesting comments from parent company chief executive Lynn Harton. Harton, CEO of the South Financial Group, issued a statement Monday that said Frierson was resigning for “personal reasons.” “Scott is a talented individual and in the right position would [...]
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    Posted: September 15, 2009, 2:56am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • England remembers WWI volunteers

    Officials in the Manchester area of England unveiled a plaque to honor the residents of a street that produced 161 World War I volunteers. The men joined up from just 60 houses in Chapel Street, Altrincham, called “the bravest little street in England.” King George V first singled out the street’s courageous residents after [...]
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    Posted: September 14, 2009, 1:00pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Carolina First president resigns

    Scott M. Frierson has resigned as president of South Financial Group’s Carolinas banking markets effective Sept. 15, according to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. No explanation was given for Frierson’s impending departure. Frierson took over as president of subsidiary Carolina First Bank in June 2008 and was responsible for Carolina First’s day-to-day operations, according [...]
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    Posted: September 12, 2009, 12:07pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Anti-gouging law hurts consumers

    South Carolina’s anti-price gouging law apparently did consumers more harm than good during a month-long statewide gas shortage that started a year ago, The State newspaper reports. That’s because some gas stations refused refills because of skyrocketing prices, an industry official told the paper. “That law and threat from the (state) attorney general kept [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 3:06am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Bank of Granite exec feels loss

    Retired Bank of Granite Corp. Chairman John Forlines has seen the value of his investment in the Hickory, NC-based financial services company fall from more than $13 million to approximately $965,000 in less than four years. Forlines, who retired as chairman in January 2006 and is now chairman emeritus, remains the bank’s biggest shareholder. [...]
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    Posted: September 11, 2009, 3:04am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Poverty exercises do nothing for poor

    Number of comments: 1
    For those looking to squander a few hours, East Cooper Community Outreach will hold a Poverty Simulation from 1:30 to 5 p.m. Tuesday at Hibben United Methodist Church. For the unenlightened, a Poverty Simulation “provides participants with an opportunity to assume the role of a low-income family member living on a limited [...]
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    Posted: September 10, 2009, 11:36am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Licensing: Nothing but a legal racket

    Number of comments: 2
    Anyone who doubts that government-mandated licensing is little more than a means to reduce competition, and therefore drive up prices, might want to take a gander at this post from The Coyote Blog: Most licensing efforts are nominally sold based on some public or consumer good but almost always end up [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 7:29am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Morgan Stanley says TSFG at risk

    Analysts with Morgan Stanley identified the South Financial Group as one of five regional bank companies most at risk for problematic commercial real estate loans, according to a research note put out by the company Tuesday.  Morgan Stanley advised investors to go long on bank stocks as the economy shows signs of recovery, but to avoid those [...]
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    Posted: September 09, 2009, 12:40am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Jim Clyburn and nuclear pork

    Eight historically black colleges and universities in South Carolina and another in Georgia will share $9 million in federal stimulus money that will be used to train students for work in the nuclear industry. This, even though only one of the schools appears to offer any nuclear science-related courses at present. Allen University, Claflin University, Benedict College, [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 9:15am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • It’s gator season in South Carolina

    Alligator hunting season opened last weekend and 1,000 hunters have up to a month to capture a single Alligator mississippiensis. This is the second straight year South Carolina has had a gator hunting season. Last year, 789 of the 1,000 permitted hunters completing the application process making them eligible to hunt, and all told they bagged 362 alligators, according [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 7:44am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • NC bank hit with FDIC order

    Number of comments: 6
    Regulators placed Hickory, NC-based Bank of Granite under a cease-and-desist order Friday, imposing restrictions requiring the institution to raise capital levels and improve its oversight mechanisms. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. order does not mean the bank is going to fail but signals that regulators are seriously concerned and want it to stop practices they [...]
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    Posted: September 08, 2009, 7:40am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Collexis sells Lawriter subsidiary

    Embattled Columbia, SC, technology company Collexis Holdings has sold Lawriter LLC, the subsidiary it acquired early last year. Collexis sold Lawriter to SSN Holdings Inc. for a little more than $2.1 million in cash, with SSN assuming all Lawriter liabilities, according to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The total value of [...]
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    Posted: September 06, 2009, 9:48am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Synovus nixes plan for SC call center

    National Bank of South Carolina parent Synovus Financial Corp. has canned plans for a call center that was to have employed 100 people in Sumter, S.C., according to The Columbus Ledger-Enquirer. “Given the current economic climate, the project to centralize our bank call centers in two locations has been reconsidered,” Synovus spokesman Greg [...]
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    Posted: September 06, 2009, 9:07am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Beaufort Arsenal: still going at 211

    The Beaufort Gazette has an interesting story on the hometown Arsenal, built in 1798 to house the Beaufort Volunteer Artillery after it fought with the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War and recently renovated. Main Street Beaufort, USA, is recommending the Beaufort Regional Chamber of Commerce house a visitors center in the recently [...]
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    Posted: September 05, 2009, 12:01pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Countybank registers $456,000 loss

    Closely held Countybank of Greenwood, SC, posted a second quarter loss of $456,000, according to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council. That compares to a $2.1 million gain during the same period in 2008 and a $545,000 profit during the first three months of 2009. Countybank, with assets of more than $250 million, had loan [...]
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    Posted: September 04, 2009, 10:37am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Looking back at the Schleswig-Holstein

    It’s interesting that the first shots of World War II, which featured tactical and technological advances practically undreamed of even a decade before, were fired by an obsolete warship that was fortunate to have survived the First World War. The German battleship Schleswig-Holstein sailed to Danzig at the end of August 1939 under the [...]
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    Posted: September 03, 2009, 1:03pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • SC’s switchgrass dreams a dead end

    One has to wonder if US Rep. Jim Clyburn actually believes all the foolishness he’s spouting about fossil fuel alternatives or if he’s just carrying water for special interest groups? Earlier this week at a climate change conference at SC State University, Clyburn sang the praises of converting switchgrass to ethanol in [...]
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    Posted: September 03, 2009, 8:28am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • FDIC insurance fund running low

    The coffers of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., the government agency that guarantees you won’t lose your money in a bank failure, have been so depleted by the wave collapsing financial institutions that analysts warn it could sink into the red by the end of this year. That has happened only once before [...]
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    Posted: September 03, 2009, 8:22am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Anderson 3: We prepare 6% for college

    Number of comments: 1
    South Carolina 2009 SAT scores were released last week and atop the list was Anderson School District 3. Iva-based Anderson 3 registered the highest average SAT score among all South Carolina school districts for 2009, according to information released by the SC Department of Education. The Anderson Independent Mail trumpeted the news under the headline: [...]
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    Posted: September 02, 2009, 7:53am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Allied war declaration stunned Hitler

    Today, 70 years after the German Wehrmacht invaded Poland and began World War II, there’s a popular perception that Hitler and the Nazi high command were fully committed to going to war with Britain and France along with the Poles beginning on Sept. 1, 1939. Not so, according to history. As Hitler prepared to [...]
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    Posted: September 01, 2009, 8:01am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • NHL won’t accept Coyotes are roadkill

    It’s no illusion that professional sports in the US appears to have succeeded over the decades in spite of itself. Consider that Major League baseball kept blacks out until after World War II, pro baseball, football and hockey have all had labor disputes that have cancelled all or parts of seasons, and NASCAR and the [...]
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    Posted: September 01, 2009, 7:56am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Secret bloggers? Launch the blackshirts!

    Number of comments: 1
    There is something disconcerting about one blogger attempting to “out” another blogger because they don’t like the material the latter posts. The Palmetto Scoop is apparently on the warpath again against certain anonymous SC bloggers, asserting that they “hide behind their computers while launching vicious, borderline libelous attacks on both public and private figures.” The [...]
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    Posted: August 31, 2009, 7:48am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Sin taxes: Invasive and ineffective

    Sin taxes have played roles of varying importance throughout US history, going all the way back to 1790, when Alexander Hamilton proposed the first excise tax on whiskey to pay off Revolutionary War debts. That brought about the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania a few years later, in which President George Washington [...]
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    Posted: August 31, 2009, 7:40am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • New FNSC boss gets enticing package

    The man tasked with turning around First National Bank of the South could realize a pretty payoff if he accomplishes the feat. Barry Mason, named last week to replace chief executive Jerry Calvert, signed a three-year employment agreement with First National that pays him an initial annual salary of $275,000 a year. The [...]
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    Posted: August 31, 2009, 7:30am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Legislature sticks it to South Carolinians

    Number of comments: 1
    Here’s a shocker: The SC General Assembly slipped a last-minute proviso in the budget earlier this year to pay off a pair of loans that were taken out by the city of Columbia and Aiken County to build hydrogen fueling stations. The bill for this legislative end-around? Some $1.45 million, according [...]
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    Posted: August 28, 2009, 9:41am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Higgs on ‘The Treaty of Non-Aggression’

    Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute has penned a brief but well-written piece on the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union 70 years ago this week. Higgs, an economist and a fellow for the Hoover Institution and the National Science Foundation, pulls no punches when discussing this oft-overlooked [...]
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    Posted: August 27, 2009, 3:30pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • First National to modify agreement

    Struggling Spartanburg, SC-based First National Bancshares got good news Wednesday when it reached an agreement that will help it avoid defaulting on the $54.1 million loan it used to purchase Carolina National Bank last year. The agreement, which is pending regulatory approval, will allow the holding company for First National Bank of [...]
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    Posted: August 27, 2009, 9:22am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Remembering the other Ted Kennedy

    Long before Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy began making headlines, another Ted Kennedy was already famous. Ted “Teeder” Kennedy led the Toronto Maple Leafs to five Stanley Cups in a Hall of Fame career that stretched from 1942 to 1957. Kennedy, who won the NHL’s most valuable player award in 1955, died on Aug. 14, at [...]
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    Posted: August 27, 2009, 8:31am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Palmetto Scoop taken to the woodshed

    Number of comments: 2
    Waldo Lydecker’s Journal does an amazing (and quite humorous) job dissecting a post by The Palmetto Scoop’s Adam Fogle on a new book about South Carolina state parks, authored by Chad Prosser, the director of the SC Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism. Fogle’s latest windmill-tilting exercise aimed at Prosser alleges a variety of affronts to humanity, such as [...]
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    Posted: August 26, 2009, 9:18am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Consumer end-around on tobacco taxes

    Here’s something legislators counting on increased revenue from higher tobacco taxes likely weren’t counting on: A growing number of smokers have turned to cultivating tobacco to blend their own cigarettes, cigars and chew, driven by ever-rising tobacco prices, according to The Associated Press. Across the Southeast, smokers and smokeless tobacco users are planting Virginia Gold, [...]
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    Posted: August 26, 2009, 7:46am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Foundering First National changes CEOs

    Number of comments: 1
    First National Bank of the South, the Spartanburg, SC-based subsidiary of embattled First National Bancshares, replaced chief executive  Jerry Calvert with J. Barry Mason Tuesday. Mason joins First National from Arthur State Bank where he was executive vice president, chief lending officer and a member of its board of directors, First National said in a [...]
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    Posted: August 25, 2009, 9:04pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Harrell lackey labeled as ‘vandal’

    Apparently, being one of Bobby Harrell’s lapdogs isn’t enough to keep you out of hot water with Wikipedia. Over this past weekend, the online encyclopedia labeled the efforts of a certain Foster6685 to sugar coat the House speaker’s Wikipedia entry as “vandalism.” While Wikipedia doesn’t specifically identify who Foster6685 is, Harrell’s right-hand man is an individual named Greg Foster. In addition [...]
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    Posted: August 25, 2009, 8:28am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Speculators still gambling on GM stock

    General Motors stock remains popular, which is surprising given that the company and the government have made it clear that the stock will someday be worthless. Investors are picking up millions of shares every day, thinking they’ll profit from what is really a hodgepodge of outdated factories and a pile of debt left [...]
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    Posted: August 25, 2009, 8:27am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Fitch cuts rating on South Financial

    Fitch Ratings on Monday cut its issuer default rating for The South Financial Group and subsidiary Carolina First Bank further into junk territory, citing continuing credit losses and economic stress in Southern markets, The Associated Press reported. Fitch cut the long-term issuer default ratings for the Greenville, SC-based bank holding company and Carolina First to [...]
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    Posted: August 24, 2009, 9:09pm EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Clunker program = very targeted stimulus

    It’s hardly surprising that Cash for Clunkers has been a rousing success. According to online automotive information resource Edmunds.com the average cash value of the traded-in clunkers was $1,475 while the owners of those vehicles earned rebates for either $3,500 or $4,500, depending on the replacements vehicles they chose. As The Coyote Blog [...]
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    Posted: August 24, 2009, 8:09am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Unraveling the Medal of Honor riddle

    It would appear that one of the two Medals of Honor given by the FBI to the Medal of Honor Museum in Charleston was actually one of several hundred decorations formally rescinded nearly a century ago. On Friday, the FBI presented the museum with a pair of Medals of Honors earned during the Civil War: one [...]
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    Posted: August 24, 2009, 8:06am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Nazis, Soviets joined forces 70 years ago

    Seventy years ago today, the world awoke to the stunning news that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union had signed a non-aggression pact. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, named for the two countries’ foreign ministers, was intended to give Hitler a free hand to deal with “the Polish problem” and, if necessary, fight Poland’s Western [...]
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    Posted: August 24, 2009, 7:57am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • SC remembers Mexican War veterans

    Barely two dozen people turned out Saturday at the South Carolina Statehouse grounds in Columbia to honor veterans of the Mexican-American War. More than 100,000 U.S. soldiers fought in the war with about 13,000 casualties. Only about 2,000 soldiers were killed in battle; most died from disease or illness. Of the 1,000 of [...]
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    Posted: August 23, 2009, 4:57pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Return of Medal of Honor raises questions

    Number of comments: 4
    The FBI Friday presented the Medal of Honor Museum in Charleston with two Medals of Honor earned during the Civil War, but there appears to be some uncertainty as to whom one of the decorations was originally awarded. According to The Charleston Post and Courier, the medals were awarded to Thomas Jenkins, a Navy [...]
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    Posted: August 22, 2009, 10:25am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Sellers sees Voorhees’ enrollment rise

    The decision by Voorhees College to hire civil rights icon Cleveland Sellers as president is paying dividends. The Denmark, SC, school is beginning the 2009-2010 academic year with its largest freshmen class in 10 years, according to The Orangeburg Times and Democrat. The total new student enrollment at Voorhees to date is 340 students, [...]
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    Posted: August 21, 2009, 12:00pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • South Financial drops dividend

    The South Financial Group announced Thursday it had suspended it dividend payment on the company’s common stock. The Greenville, SC-based financial services company had been paying a quarterly dividend of 1 cent, but as recently as the second quarter of 2008 its dividend was 19 cents. The company’s board of directors agreed to [...]
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    Posted: August 21, 2009, 8:09am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Presbyterian College to study capitalism

    Proving that it is indeed possible to get privately funded grants – something bigger schools such as the University of South Carolina and Clemson seem to have forgotten – Presbyterian College received a $500,000 grant from the BB&T Foundation to study the moral and ethical foundations of capitalization. “To be liberally educated, all students should [...]
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    Posted: August 20, 2009, 7:57am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • State gets scoop on non-story

    Number of comments: 1
    Included in The State newspaper’s “Latest News” column Wednesday was this exciting expose: Fender bender mars first day for Lexington 1 students A Lexington District 1 school bus carrying two elementary students was involved in a minor fender bender this morning on their first day back to school. No one was injured in the [...]
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    Posted: August 20, 2009, 7:26am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • DFHS scorns poor schools, taxpayers

    There’s something extremely disturbing about the revelation that Dutch Fork High School appears to have dumped dozens of quality, usable textbooks in a dumpster. According to the South Carolina Policy Council, which reported the story Tuesday, most of the chemistry and calculus textbooks appear to be just two or three years old and sell online for $27.50 or more [...]
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    Posted: August 19, 2009, 9:20am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Chamberlain was unfit to lead Britain

    More proof has surfaced that Neville Chamberlain was the wrong man to lead Great Britain to victory during World War II. Letters the former British Prime Minister wrote to his sisters and entries in his pocket diaries in 1939 show that Chamberlain wasn’t cut out to be a war leader, according to [...]
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    Posted: August 19, 2009, 8:03am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Harrell’s minions discover Wikipedia

    One of the perks of power is having minions. You know, the little people who are more than happy to do your bidding at all hours of the day and night. Case in point: Bobby Harrell, the Speaker of the South Carolina House. Harrell’s right hand man is Greg Foster and [...]
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    Posted: August 18, 2009, 12:23pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Work begins to identify WWI dead

    DNA testing to try to identify hundreds of bodies buried in a mass grave during World War I began last week. The bodies come from Fromelles in northern France, where thousands of British and Australian troops were killed or wounded in a single night in 1916.  Regarded as a total failure, the battle [...]
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    Posted: August 18, 2009, 8:22am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Reading between First National’s lines

    The Spartanburg Herald-Journal has a curious article on First National Bancshares in today’s edition. The paper finally gets around to reporting on hometown First National’s 10-Q filing from last Friday, stating in the opening paragraph that the company lost $20 million during the second quarter and doesn’t expect to meet minimum capital requirements by [...]
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    Posted: August 18, 2009, 8:20am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Textile publication calls it quits

    Southern Textile News, founded in 1945, printed its final edition Monday. The popular trade newspaper, which focused on the region’s textile industry, decided to call it  quits after 64 years in business  due to declining advertising revenues and unprecedented deterioration of the US textile industry since the 1990s, according to The Spartanburg Herald-Journal. Chip Smith, owner [...]
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    Posted: August 17, 2009, 12:43pm EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Congaree Bancshares trims losses

    Congaree Bancshares pared its losses during the second quarter to $213,688, from more than $900,000 during the same period in 2008. The Cayce, SC-based parent of Congaree State Bank, which began in 2006, actually recorded no provisions for loan losses during the three months ended June 30, according to information filed with the [...]
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    Posted: August 17, 2009, 7:56am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • First National loses $20 million

    Things aren’t getting any better for First National Bancshares. The embattled parent of First National Bank of the South posted a staggering loss of $20 million for the quarter ended June 30, continuing the Spartanburg, SC-based company’s struggles. That represents a loss per share of $3.18. First National’s stock, by comparison, is currently trading [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 10:58pm EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Fed researcher identifies subprime myths

    Cleveland Fed Senior Research Economist Yuliya Demyanyk exposes 10 myths surrounding subprime mortgages. Top of the list: Subprime mortgages went only to borrowers with impaired credit. Subprime mortgages went to all kinds of borrowers, not only to those with impaired credit. A loan can be labeled subprime not only because of the characteristics [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 1:02pm EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • CommunitySouth hit with memorandum

    CommunitySouth Financial Corp. revealed Friday that subsidiary CommunitySouth Bank & Trust has entered into a memorandum of understanding with the SC State Board of Financial Institutions and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. According to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Easely, SC-based CommunitySouth entered into a memorandum of understanding with the SC banking commissioner and [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 10:27am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • SC minority bank posts more losses

    South Carolina’s only minority owned bank continues to lose money. South Carolina Community Bank lost $166,000 during the three months ended June 30 and has now posted a deficit of more than $200,000 through the first half of 2009, according to Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council information. Columbia-based SC Community Bank recorded provisions for [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 9:34am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Greer Bancshares shows $155K loss

    Greer Bancshares reported a net loss of $155,368 for the three months ended June 30, compared to a net gain of $257,274 during the same period a year earlier, according to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Greer Bancshares, the South Carolina-based parent of Greer State Bank, attributed [...]
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    Posted: August 14, 2009, 9:31am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Cotton acreage may see surge in 2010

    US cotton acreage may rebound next year, thanks to rising futures and slumping grain prices, at least one industry official believes. The ongoing global recession has ”caused the greatest collapse in cotton demand we have ever seen,” according to Joe Nicosia, chief executive officer of Allenberg Cotton Co. of Memphis, Tenn. And while it’s difficult to [...]
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    Posted: August 13, 2009, 7:48am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • Southern First sees drop in income

    Southern First Bancshares reported that net income available to shareholders for the second quarter was just $12,000, down from $862,000 a year earlier, according to information filed Wednesday with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The Greenville, SC-based parent of Southern First Bank said the decrease resulted primarily from a $778,000 increase in noninterest expenses, having [...]
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    Posted: August 13, 2009, 7:44am EDT
    by southcarolina1670

  • ‘Cash for Cows’ another hit in the wallet

    Number of comments: 2
    The ridiculous wasteful Cash for Clunkers program isn’t the only example of an industry destroying inventory with the end result ultimately being higher prices for consumers. According to Bloomberg News, US dairies will remove 86,710 cows from their herds to be sold to slaughterhouses as part of an industry-funded program intended to boost [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 9:22am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Researchers seek WWII wrecks off NC

    Researchers are in the midst of a three-week research expedition off the coast of North Carolina to study World War II shipwrecks sunk in 1942 in what’s called the “Graveyard of the Atlantic.” The region includes wrecks from US and British naval fleets, merchant ships and German U-boats, all sunk in the early part [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 7:40am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • UCI to restate earnings for several years

    UCI Medical Affiliates will have to restate its earnings reports for fiscal years 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005 and 2007 as a result of the actions of the company’s former chief financial officer. Last month, former UCI CFO Jerry F. Wells Jr. pled guilty in federal court to criminal charges for falsifying eight of the [...]
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    Posted: August 12, 2009, 7:37am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Moral relativism doesn’t change facts

      A handful of Columbia-area residents gathered Sunday on the University of South Carolina campus to remember the atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki on Aug. 9, 1945, according to a story in The State newspaper While the article stated that remembrance, not blame, was the theme for those who attended the [...]
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    Posted: August 11, 2009, 9:47am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Peoples Bancorporation sees mixed results

    Some good news and bad news for Peoples Bancorporation of Easley, SC: The parent of Peoples National Bank, the Bank of Anderson and Seneca National Bank reported a second quarter profit of $82,000 for the three months ended June 30, a substantial improvement over 2008, when it lost $563,000 during the same [...]
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    Posted: August 11, 2009, 9:40am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Mouse: it’s what’s for supper – in Malawi

    Ah, good times in sub-Saharan Africa. The Associated Press reports that field mice are being sold in Malawi markets and roadside stalls. Cooked, salted or dried, field mice strung on sticks are sold as a popular delicacy in the country, which is among the world’s least developed and most densely populated. The mice are [...]
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    Posted: August 11, 2009, 9:21am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Hidden realities of Clunker program

    Not surprisingly, the government’s Cash-4-Clunkers program brings with it unintended consequences. Multiple car dealerships in South Carolina have reported that used car prices are already extremely high because of a diminished supply of both new and used cars, according to a report by the South Carolina Policy Council. Some used car prices, [...]
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    Posted: August 10, 2009, 9:28am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • When lawyering was worth $50 a week

    The State newspaper has a short profile on Ed Mullins, a Columbia attorney who is celebrating 50 years of practicing law with Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough. When Mullins joined the firm July 1, 1959, out of the University of South School of Law, he was its fifth lawyer. Today, the firm has more than [...]
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    Posted: August 10, 2009, 8:02am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Community Capital okays stock dilution

      Shareholders of Community Capital Corp. of Greenwood, SC, have approved doubling the company’s number of authorized common stock shares. The company’s move will enable Community Capital to increase its total number of authorized shares to 20 million from 10 million, according to information filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The corporation was also [...]
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    Posted: August 10, 2009, 7:32am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • TSFG takes hit on planned sale of campus

    As expected, The South Financial Group will take a substantial charge as a result of plans to sell its unfinished Greenville corporate campus. Based on the current environment, initial estimates of value and an 18-to-36-month marketing period, South Financial recorded an impairment charge of $15.9 million during the quarter ended June 30, according to [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2009, 4:29pm EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • Making friends, influencing people – not

    The only thing worse than the protracted sycophant-like treatment the media administers to the National Football League in general is the protracted sycophant-like treatment the media gives the NFL’s preseason. Come on, you know the routine:  “Where seldom is heard a discouraging word/ And the skies are not cloudy all day.” Which is how we [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2009, 9:31am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich

  • A tale of two South Carolina blogs

    Earlier this week, Waldo Lydecker’s Journal celebrated its second anniversary. Here’s how Waldo marked the occasion: “Waldo’s little typing-in-his bath routine turns two today. Having launched it purely as a writing exercise, Waldo’s been pleasantly surprised by the response. It has been overwhelmingly negative. Every single major blogger in SC has denounced Waldo [...]
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    Posted: August 07, 2009, 8:16am EDT
    by Kevin Dietrich
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