Sorry Dan, Maryland isn't crazy enough to elect you governor. We will go with Wes Moore

   

    So now we know that the Republican Party in Maryland is not really Larry Hogan's party but Donald Trump's.  Dan Cox might do well in Oklahoma or Mississippi but Maryland has too many educated voters.  Hogan must be disappointed that the Maryland Republicans have returned to a party that doesn't really expect to win anything in Maryland.  The party of Mac Mathias is long since dead and now seems to be fine with just being a party that only wants to complain about what the Maryland Democrats get to do in governing the State.

    The slow vote count in this election is thanks to Larry Hogan who vetoed a bill that would have allowed the mail-in votes to be counted as they came in instead of 2 days after election day.  Mail-in voting will become the most popular way to vote in Maryland and it shouldn't follow the old rules that were designed for the old system when it was absentee voting.  We should once again know who wins elections in Maryland on election night.  Maryland could join other states that only have mail-in voting and save the costs of having polling places.  Time to enter the 21st Century.

P.S.

Recognize anyone in the attached video?

From the Columbia Patch

Help Color Community Murals At HoCo Library Branches This Summer

Different murals featuring Chesapeake Bay Watershed ecosystems have been designed at HoCo library branches. Help color them in this summer.

Kristin Danley-Greiner,Patch Staff

Posted Fri, Jul 15, 2022 at 2:16 pm ET

This Saturday at 11 a.m. will be a mural coloring session at the Elkridge library branch. (Renee Schiavone/Patch)

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — This summer, the Howard County Library System has been hosting a different mural featuring one of six different ecosystems found within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed. All of the murals have been designed by HCLS Adult Art Curriculum Specialist Jereme Scott.

The community can help complete the community murals in a "color by number" format. This Saturday at 11 a.m. will be a coloring session at the Elkridge branch. More information can be found here: https://live-howardcounty.pant...

The branch murals are:

• Glenwood Branch: Forests
• Miller Branch: Rivers and streams
• Savage Branch: Aquatic reefs and pilings

• Elkridge Branch: Beaches and tidal flats
• East Columbia Branch: Marshes and wetlands
• Central Branch: Open and shallow waters

#hocoblogs

Not playing on a level playing field

 

Latest Webb telescope pic

                I don't know about you but these pictures from Webb make me feel small.  And how stupid we are to not realize we are destroying our Earth with climate change.

Latest Webb Telescope picture

 

Howard County has the 6th highest median income in the United States

    

     The median income in Howard County is over $124,000.  No wonder the cost of living here is so high. Our high quality of life comes at a price to live here.  If you look at the traffic coming into Howard County in the morning and the same heavy traffic going out of the County in the evening rush hour you can see that more people work here than live here.  Here is the link to the US News and World ranking.

#hocoblogs

Help Howard County students in need of school supplies

 

Do you remember the excitement and tension of the first day of the school year?  If you were fortunate, you had a new school outfit and brand-new school supplies.  Now overlay a Covid-19 pandemic that has changed so much for the educational lives of HCPSS students while aggravating the pre-existing disparities and digital divides.

 

Prepare for Success, in formal partnership with the Howard County Public School System and the Community Action Council of Howard County (CAC), is now in its 22nd year.  PFS is facing its biggest challenge ever in terms of the number of students to be served.  Last year, donations enabled 3,500+ students to be served. This contrasts with 13,400 students – 22.5% of all HCPSS – who receive federally funded school meals and rely on support services like ours.

 

We hope the pandemic is receding in Howard County but is still making an impact for many.  Its emotional and economic scars on families and students may linger for years.  This year, more than ever, we all want students to return to the classroom Prepared for Success.

 

We are appealing to you as a past supporter.  How many students can you sponsor?  Despite inflation, we can do It for $25 a student with bulk purchases. As always, 100% of your contribution will go to school supplies. All donations are tax-deductible.  The options for donating are: 

 

Donate Online through CAC.  CLICK HERE to be taken to the Community Action Council donor form.

 

Send a check payable to Community Action Council / PFS to:

     Community Action Council, 9820 Patuxent Woods Drive,                           Columbia, MD  21046 

 

Amazon Wish List.  This started at the height of the pandemic.  You can shop for and donate needed supplies with just a few clicks.  Our Amazon Wish List is available year-round.

 

The students need and welcome your continued support.

 

Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

  

Roy and Susan Appletree, Co-Coordinators

prepareforsuccess@gmail.com                          

 

#hocoblogs

When your political party becomes seditious

    

     Watching yesterday's January 6 hearing it was hard to not wonder what it would take for some of the "normal" people to start publically shouting about the movement to try and overthrow the government.  There is a time to break ranks and publically take the risk of losing your job to alert the country.

       It is not like we haven't seen politicians accept defeat when they might have had a case to question an election loss.  Richard Nixon in 1960 had grounds to contest the voting results in Chicago that caused him to lose Illinois and the election.   Al Gore could have not accepted that the Supreme Court on a 5-4 ruling stop the counting of votes in Florida that might have made him the winner of the 2000 election that he had more than 500,000 more votes than Bush.  Hillary Clinton could have felt robbed of an election where she won the popular vote by 5 million votes after losing 3 states by less than 80,000 votes.  She didn't start calling the election officials in those 3 states asking for them to "find the necessary votes" to overturn the election.  So it shows how dangerous the Republican Party has become when 147 Republican congresspersons voted against certifying an election that Biden won by 7 million votes and after Trump had sent a mob to the Capitol that day to "hang the Vice President."   The Confederate officials of the 1860s were no different than the Republican Party of the 2020s.

The Webb telescope releases its first picture

    

A nice diversion from politics today.  The Webb Telescope will release more pictures today.  I saw the telescope being built on a visit to the Goddard Space Center a few years ago.  Many of the more distant galaxies in orange are distorted by the gravitational pull of the bright ones in the center of the picture.

The good old, old, old days

     

     When you listen to conservatives talk about the documents they feel should guide us in 2022 they frequently refer to the Bible written almost 2,000 years ago and the parts of the Constitution written over 200 years ago.  Any social progress like civil rights, women's rights, gay rights, or the right to an abortion should be viewed as a mistake that needs to be corrected.  Human wisdom to decide how we live ended hundreds or thousands of years ago.  Of course, the conservatives are not mentioning that people were stoned for hearsay, adultery, or were allowed to own slaves during these times of great wisdom.  Selective reasoning can be shown to be irrational. 

    The Supreme Court is supposed to rule on the law and precedence but seems to use states' rights when their politics oppose liberal federal action like abortion but use the opposite reasoning when they overrule liberal state actions like gun restrictions that they don't like.  Conservatives seem to have a problem when society moves in a direction they are not comfortable with and will use whatever lever they have to block that progress.  It may use gerrymandering, stacking the Supreme Court, giving conservative state legislatures supreme powers, the Electoral College, or the Senate filibuster.  All of these methods are designed to prevent democratic majority rule because conservatives are almost always in the minority.  They are not interested in reform but only in stopping reform and progress.  When conservatives are in control of Congress legislating stops except in a few areas like reducing taxes and disemboweling the federal government.  Unfortunately, we have seen how liberals trying to build majorities in a democratic country face an opposition that is only interested in power and control. Democracy is only for liberals.  If all else fails conservatives are not afraid to bring out the guns and attack Congress.  Conservatives have gotten to a place where they are accepting of corruption and immorality if it enhances their power.  Their continued support of Trump shows this reality.

    

This should help with our diets