Well it's nice to see that SOMEONE still made a big profit in this economy...

Travel in general has gone down a lot in 2008. No one wants to pay for the gas to drive anywhere, fuel prices for planes have caused tickets for airfare to increase (not to mention the fees for luggage now) and there are very few who would consider riding a train or a voyage to sea on a ship to be ideal vacations.

However, Suffolk, Virginia doesn't seem to be feeling the pinch when it comes to tourism. In fact, Lauren Wicks article about the increase in revenue from tourism is a bright ray of hope in an increasinly dark and dismal industry. Let's hope the light continues to shine throughout the rest of the United States.

Conservative Voices are Made BIG!

The election this year is going to be one for the history books and I think that everyone who is eligible should exercise their right to vote. However, I also believe that everyone should be INFORMED as well and that the government should strive to make this election as fair and error-free (let's try to remember the debacle of the 2000 election as we move forward) as possible. Originally, I thought we were on the right track. Now I'm no Obama fan but I appreciated his tactics and I think McCain is doing what he can to get ahead.

I try to stay on top of what's going on with the campaign and the opinion of the masses so I was thrilled to find that there were a lot of people sharing their opinion in the Conservative Voices Forum. What I'm not so thrilled about is a story that someone shares about an experience with a poller who called their house:

 The poller calls the person's house and the person states that now is not a good time as their child is fussing. The poller says it will only be a few minutes and that they didn't mind the fussing in the background. The questions consisted of: 1. Do you support lowering taxes to help the economy recover? (The person said "yes") 2. Did you support the initial invastion of Iraq? The poller emphasized that this had nothing to do with the surge or supporting troops currently. (The person said "I didn't think it was the best time to go in")

At this point, the person is extremely surpised that the poller has never asked which candidate they were supporting. So the person asks the poller why that question wasn't asked. The poller said that the person's views would reveal who they were supporting. So the person asked what their answers revealed. The poller stated "Obama." The person was outraged because they were a staunch McCain supporter. There was additional comments made to the poller (see them here) and the poller informed the person that in order to mark them down as a McCain supporter, their supervisor would have to approve it because it contradicted the answers given. 

Well, to be quite frank, I have to agree with the members of MadeBig who share this person's outrage. It's unbelieveable that this is what "polling" is considered now! After reading that and hearing all about this ACORN nonsense I'm left wondering whether or not this election will be fair or not. It will certain be one for the history books; but in a good or bad way?

 

Hello, my Name is...
My friend Sean Scampton attended a conference where one of the speakers was Scott Ginsberg and Sean was fascinated with him. It has been just over 2 years since that conference and I'm just now seeing the pictures of the event and it looked like a lot of fun! I'm glad that I was told about MadeBig and that I'm able to enjot all the great things that are available on the site.

With a URL that says "financial meltdown"...
Mood:  sad
How can one not be depressed at the current financial situation of our country? Yahoo Finance has a big bold headline quoting Bernanke as saying a recession is more likely without a bailout and after looking at the article and reading comments about how this new plan is a form of socialism, I cannot help but feel dispirited about the entire situation...wouldn't you agree?

Thankfully there are a few numbers I can control
Mood:  bright
With rising fuel and food costs, it's nice to know that there are still some numbers that do exactly what I expect them to do - the numbers 1 through 9 never disappoint but they are always challenging when I sit down to a game of Sudoku.